tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58196406943858434902018-11-14T16:58:33.865+02:00TechnodroneGoing Virtual In The Physical WorldMaish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-35030096968865497552017-07-25T22:30:00.001+03:002018-08-19T09:49:41.363+03:00Cloud-Agnostic: Friend or Foe?<p>I have been working on a project for a while that includes the deployment of a large number of moving parts that are in a significant state of flux. Drops every two weeks, new features added all the time, and, of course, with a system this size there is a great amount of complexity involved. Complexity in the Continuous Integration stage, complexity with the end-to-end testing, and, definitely, complexity with the Continuous Deployment.</p>
<p>A good part of the intricacies comes from the fact the development team wants to assure that the deployment will be cloud-agnostic. But before I go into if this would be a good or a bad thing, let me first explain what this means, and offer a few examples.</p><p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Cloud-Agnostic-Friend-or-Foe_6D7/Cloud-graphic-from-Maish.jpg"><img width="530" height="254" title="Cloud Agnostic" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; float: none; display: block; background-image: none;" alt="Cloud Agnostic" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Cloud-Agnostic-Friend-or-Foe_6D7/Cloud-graphic-from-Maish_thumb.jpg" border="0"></a></p>
<p>It is no secret that almost no OpenStack cloud is identical to another. The network setup could be different (provider networks vs. private networks). Some clouds have Swift installed by default, while others do not. There are nuances and differences between an on-premises OpenStack deployment and using an OpenStack cloud provider, such as RackSpace. APIs are different, versions are different. This makes things very difficult for people writing software to interact with the cloud to address a fully cloud agnostic solution. APIs, authentication mechanisms, and the way you can access resources will change from one cloud to another.</p><p>Read the rest of the article <a href="http://www.iamondemand.com/blog/cloud-agnostic-friend-or-foe/" target="_blank">here</a></p>Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-58013362694240691292017-02-09T23:39:00.000+02:002017-02-09T23:41:11.282+02:00I am Running for the OpenStack User Committee<p>Two days ago I decided to submit my candidacy for one of the two spots up for election (for the first time!) on the OpenStack User committee.</p> <p>I am pasting my proposal verbatim (original email link <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/user-committee/2017-February/001680.html" target="_blank">here</a>)…</p> <blockquote> <p><em><strong>Good evening to you all.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>As others have so kindly stepped up - I would also like to self-nominate myself for as candidate for the User committee.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>I have been involved in the OpenStack community since the Icehouse release.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>From day 1,&nbsp; I felt that the user community was not completely accepted as a part of the OpenStack community and that there was a clear and broad disconnect between the two parts of OpenStack.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Instead of going all the way back - and stepping through time to explain who I am and what I have done - I have chosen a few significant points along the way - of where I think I made an impact - sometimes small - but also sometimes a lot bigger.</strong></em></p> <ul> <li><em><strong>The OpenStack Architecture Design Guide [1]. This was my first Opensource project and it was an honor to participate and help the community to produce such a valuable resource. </strong></em></li> <li><em><strong>Running for the TC for the first time [2]. I was not elected.</strong></em></li> <li><em><strong>Running for the TC for the second time [3]. Again I was not elected.<br><br>(There has never been a member of the User community elected to a TC seat - AFAIK)</strong></em></li></ul> <p><em><strong>In my original candidacy [2] proposal - I mentioned the inclusion of others.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Which is why I so proud of the achievement of the definition of the AUC from the last cycle and the workgroup [3] that Shamail Tahir and I co-chaired <br>(Needless to say that a **huge** amount of the credit goes also to all the other members of the WG that were involved!!) in making this happen.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Over the years I think I have tried to make difference (perhaps not always in the right way) - maybe the developer community was not ready for such a drastic change - and I still think that they are not.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Now is a time for change.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>I think that the User Committee and these upcoming election (which are the first ever) are a critical time for all of us that are part of the OpenStack community - who contribute in numerous ways - **but do not contribute code**.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>The User Committee is now becoming what it should have been from the start, an equal participant in the 3 pillars of OpenStack.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>I would like to be a part, actually I would be honored to be a part, of ensuring that this comes to fruition and would like to request your vote for the User Committee.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Now down to the nitty gritty. If elected I would like to focus on the following (but not only):</strong></em></p> <ol> <li><em><strong>Establishing the User committee as significant part of OpenStack - and continue the amazing collaboration that has been forged over the past two years. The tangible feedback to the OpenStack community provided by the Working Groups have defined clear requirements coming from the trenches and need to be addressed throughout the community as a whole.<br></strong></em></li> <li><em><strong>Expand the AUC constituency - both by adding additional criteria and by encouraging more participation in the community according to the initial defined criteria.<br></strong></em></li> <li><em><strong>Establish a clear and fruitful working relationship with Technical committee - enabling the whole of OpenStack to continue to evolve, produce features and functionality that is not only cutting edge but also fundamental and crucial to anyone and everyone using OpenStack today.</strong></em></li></ol> <p><em><strong>Last but not least - I would like to point you to a blog post I wrote almost a year ago [5].</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>My views have not changed. OpenStack is evolving and needs participation not only from the developer community (which by the way is facing more than enough of its own challenges) but also from us who use, and operate OpenStack.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>For me - we are already in a better place - and things will only get better - regardless of who leads the User committee.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>Thank you for your consideration - and I would like to wish the best of luck to all the other candidates.</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>-- <br>Best Regards,<br>Maish Saidel-Keesing</strong></em></p> <p><em><strong>[1] </strong></em><a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-openstack-architecture-design-guide.html"><em><strong>http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-openstack-architecture-design-guide.html</strong></em></a></p> <p><em><strong>[2] </strong></em><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062372.html"><em><strong>http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062372.html</strong></em></a></p> <p><em><strong>[3] </strong></em><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-September/075773.html"><em><strong>http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-September/075773.html</strong></em></a></p> <p><em><strong>[4] </strong></em><a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/AUCRecognition"><em><strong>https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/AUCRecognition</strong></em></a></p> <p><em><strong>[5] </strong></em><a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2016/03/we-are-all-openstack-are-we-really.html"><em><strong>http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2016/03/we-are-all-openstack-are-we-really.html</strong></em></a></p></blockquote> <p>Elections open up on <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Governance/Foundation/UserCommittee/UC-Election-Feb17" target="_blank">February 13th</a> and only those who have been recognized as AUC (Active User Contributors) are eligible to vote.</p> <p>Don’t forget to vote!</p>Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-43357362575432562782016-10-25T07:40:00.001+03:002016-10-25T07:40:24.443+03:00Pre-OpenStack Summit Post<p>I am on my way to the summit – cutting it fine, as I will only be arriving after the keynotes have started on Day 1. That is part of my life being a religious orthodox Jew. </p> <p>Just a few hours ago, I finished the festival of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukkot" target="_blank">Sukkot</a>, a festival where we ‘leave’ our homes for 8 days and move to a temporary house. Well not really leave the house – but we eat all our meals in the Sukkah for the whole festival.</p> <p>It symbolizes the fact that we have faith in G-d and remember that life is was not so easy and that we left slavery in Egypt many years ago to become a free nation.</p> <p>Going back to the title of the post.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Pre-Summit_65DE/Barcelona-Summit.png"><img title="Barcelona Summit" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Barcelona Summit" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Pre-Summit_65DE/Barcelona-Summit_thumb.png" width="644" height="228"></a></p> <p>The main reason I am going to this summit is because I am co-presenting a session on the work <br><a href="https://twitter.com/ShamailXD" target="_blank">Shamail Tahir</a> and myself have been leading with the Active User Contributor (AUC) working group over the past few months.</p> <p>If you are interested in more details about the work – I will not rehash the post that has already been published - <a title="https://opensource.com/business/16/10/interview-maish-saidel-keesing-openstack-summit" href="https://opensource.com/business/16/10/interview-maish-saidel-keesing-openstack-summit" target="_blank">Recognizing active user contributors to OpenStack</a>. </p> <p>Please take a minute or three to read it over.</p> <p>Great!! You are back.</p> <p>I think that we are at a time where OpenStack is about to change, and for the better. Traditionally Operators and Users have been <strike>neglected</strike> left out of many of the decisions made in the projects, something which I have vocally opposed many a time (you can find most of my posts <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/search/label/OpenStack" target="_blank">here</a>) especially this one - <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2016/03/we-are-all-openstack-are-we-really.html" target="_blank">We Are All OpenStack! Are We Really????</a>.</p> <p>A number of things have happened recently – and will continue to evolve over the next few months – which will enable Users and Operators to actually have a voice (at least that is my true hope and belief).</p> <p>Proper representation, real recognition, and hopefully some more influence in directions and perhaps also priorities.</p> <p>If you are going to be at the summit, make sure you <a href="https://www.openstack.org/summit/barcelona-2016/summit-schedule/events/15063/the-path-to-becoming-an-auc-active-user-contributor" target="_blank">join Shamail and myself</a> presenting the work that was done over the past few months.</p> <p>I hope that one day we will be able to look back on the past and reflect on a time once past, and understand that we are all now one community.</p> <p>Looking forward to see you there!</p>Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-45840678056001659362016-03-24T23:27:00.001+02:002016-03-25T16:39:15.117+03:00We Are All OpenStack! Are We Really????<h3>Background</h3> <p>OpenStack has a vast community, globally distributed, spanning multiple time zones and all sorts and kinds. The community has a culture - a charter, a way of doing things. It is something that you have to learn how to get used to - because the lay of the land is not always as straight forward as you would expect, not what you are accustomed to, and sometimes it might see downright weird. But as the saying goes, "When in Rome, do as the Romans".</p> <p>A <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/community/2016-March/001422.html" target="_blank">thread</a> on the OpenStack mailing list as of late week (actually <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/community/2016-February/001405.html" target="_blank">two of them</a>) caught my eye, and attention - so much that I feel the need to write this post.</p> <p>Ever since I have started to get involved with OpenStack, I have noticed that there is a very obvious divide between the Developers (those who write and contribute code to OpenStack) and the User community (this is split into two parts - those who actually consume OpenStack - the end users, and those who deploy and maintain OpenStack - the operators). But before the thread - let me explain current situation in OpenStack for those who might not be acquainted with the way things work.</p> <p>Anyone who wants can sign up as an OpenStack foundation member. All you need to do is to sign up on the site, fill in a form, accept an agreement - and you are a full fledged OpenStack foundation member.</p> <p>The 'benefits' that come with this are not many - and the obligations are not that demanding either.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">2.2 </font></em><a href="http://www.openstack.org/legal/bylaws-of-the-openstack-foundation/" target="_blank"><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Individual Members</font></em></a><em><font face="Meiryo UI">.<br>(a) Individual Members must be natural persons. Individual Members may be any natural person who has an interest in the purpose of the Foundation and may be employed by Platinum Members or Gold Members.<br>(b) The application, admission, withdrawal and termination of persons as Individual Members are set forth in the membership policy attached as Appendix 1 (“Individual Member Policy”).</font></em></p></blockquote> <p>As an foundation member - you can run as a candidate for the Individual Member Director elections and of course you can vote in the above elections. You are invited to participate in the User surveys that are published on a regular basis. And of course you consider yourself a member of the OpenStack community. You are also <a href="https://governance.openstack.org/reference/charter.html#candidates-for-tc-seats" target="_blank">eligible</a> to run as a candidate for the Technical Committee elections (but you are not allowed to vote – see below).</p> <p>Next come the Active Technical Contributors (ATC). These are the people that actually write the code (well at least that was the intention - I will explain later). The criteria for becoming an ATC are as <a href="https://www.openstack.org/legal/technical-committee-member-policy/" target="_blank">follows</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">(i) An Individual Member is an ATC who has had a contribution approved for inclusion in any of the official OpenStack projects during one of the two prior release cycles of the Core OpenStack Project (“Approved Contribution”). Such Individual Member shall remain an ATC for three hundred and sixty five days after the date of acceptance of such Approved Contribution.<br>(ii) An Individual Member who has made only other technical contributions to the OpenStack Core Project (such as bug triagers and technical documentation writers) can apply to the chair of the Technical Committee to become an ATC. The final approval of such application shall be approved by a vote of the Technical Committee. The term shall be for three hundred and sixty five days after the date of approval of the application by the Technical Committee.</font></em></p></blockquote> <p>This comes with obligations and benefits as well. The obligations are that you are expected to contribute code according to the guidelines and rules of the projects, code quality must be upheld, and etc. etc.</p> <p>The benefits of being an ATC are as follows.</p> <ul> <li>You get a free pass to the OpenStack summit ($600 value). <li>You are eligible to vote in the bi-annual <a href="https://governance.openstack.org/reference/charter.html#voters-for-tc-seats-atc" target="_blank">Technical Committee Elections</a>. <li>You are also eligible to vote for the <a href="https://governance.openstack.org/reference/charter.html#voters-for-ptl-seats-apc" target="_blank">Project Team Lead Elections</a> - which occur every six months - providing you contributed to that specific project over the last cycle. <li>You are considered an integral member of the OpenStack community. Up until last summit - you were also granted access to the OpenStack Design summit - something that was closed for only ATC's (but this has changed since last summit - or two summits ago - I cannot remember).</li></ul> <p>There are two other groups who are <strong>partially</strong> recognized by the OpenStack community. There are people that are contributors to the community. They submit bugs, review patches, but do not actually submit code to the projects. I assume that the idea is that once they start getting into the code - then they actually will contribute code back into the projects in the long run and will become ATC's.</p> <p>And then there are the end-users, and then the Operators. They are the people who are trying to deploy, upgrade and maintain what we all call OpenStack.</p> <ul> <li>They are the ones who are trying to get things working in OpenStack. <li>They are the ones who have to provide creative ways to supply solutions to their clients - because OpenStack does not do what it was supposed to - does not do it well enough, does it really badly - or has not got there yet.<br><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Two clear examples (for me) would be - bad telemetry for all instances (which is now being re-written) or Load balancing that is not enterprise ready.</font></em> <li>They participate in an Ops meetups (see the outcome from the last one in <a href="http://superuser.openstack.org/articles/takeaways-from-the-openstack-mid-cycle-ops-meetup-first-time-s-the-charm" target="_blank">Manchester</a> a month ago) <li>They contribute code - to the <a href="https://review.openstack.org/#/admin/projects/?filter=ops-" target="_blank">Ops repositories</a> - which include scripts, tools, and much more.<br>They participate in working groups - such as Enterprise Working group, Operator Tags, Product marketing - there are many. The technical (a.k.a. Developer) community see these participants as part of the user community. They do not see these contributions as part of the OpenStack product, they are deemed Upstream, or Downstream - but not part of the OpenStack products.</li></ul> <h3>&nbsp;</h3> <h3>The Problem</h3> <p>The thread I am talking about - was titled "<a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/community/2016-March/001422.html" target="_blank">Recognizing Ops contributions</a>". It has been voiced many a time (and not only by me - even though I have been very vocal about it) that Operators should be recognized as part of OpenStack. I have actually run for the Technical Committee elections on the <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2015/04/why-i-decided-to-run-for-openstack.html" target="_blank">basis of this stand</a> - but I was not at all successful.</p> <p>OpenStack works on the <a href="https://review.openstack.org/#/c/256439/4/reference/opens.rst" target="_blank">4 Opens</a> (and this is an official OpenStack resolution!)</p> <p>I would like to bring your attention to the following points in that resolution</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong>The community controls the design process</strong>. You can help make this software meet your needs.</font></em></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>The technical governance of the project is a community meritocracy with <strong>contributors</strong> electing technical leads and members of the Technical Committee.</em></font></p></blockquote> <p><strong>The obvious question though is - what is considered a contributor?</strong></p> <p>If the four opens are to be upheld - then I would expect that the all contributors are equal.</p> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Today that is not the case.</font></strong></p> <p>There have been many a time where I personally and many other operators as well have asked for things to change in OpenStack, have asked to be included in the community, have asked to provide feedback, and have been constantly told that everything should be done the way that developers have been doing it. Sometimes with success, sometimes with less, but I think that OpenStack has started on the right track - but still there is a whole lot of resistance to allow Operators a full and equal say in what happens in the development process.</p> <p>When I see comments like <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-operators/2016-March/009791.html" target="_blank">this</a> (from Thierry Carrez - a long time TC member), I come across what has been happening for many years already.</p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>Yeah, we can't really overload ATC because this is defined and used in governance. I'd rather call all of us "contributors". <br></em></font><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>&lt;..snip..&gt; <br>Upstream contributors are represented by the Technical Committee and vote for it. Downstream contributors are represented by the User Committee and (imho) should vote for it.</em></font></p></blockquote> <p>Yes Thierry continues to say that all of the contributors should be equal - but keep the two separate - only people who contribute Upstream (which I understand as those who write code) should be part of the TC, and all the others - part of the User Committee.</p> <p>What is this User Committee? Looking on the <a href="https://www.openstack.org/foundation/user-committee/" target="_blank">OpenStack site</a> there is a clear definition of its mission.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">As the number of production OpenStack deployments increase and more ecosystem partners add support for OpenStack clouds, it becomes increasingly important that the communities building services around OpenStack guide and influence the product evolution. The OpenStack User Committee mission is to:</font></em></p> <ul> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Consolidate user requirements and present these to the management board and technical committee.</font></em> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Provide guidance for the development teams where user feedback is requested.</font></em> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Track OpenStack deployments and usage, helping to share user stories and experiences.</font></em> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Work with the user groups worldwide to keep the OpenStack community vibrant and informed.</font></em></li></ul></blockquote> <p>To me it seems that the user committee is a mantlepiece body which has absolutely <strong>no</strong> influence on what happens in OpenStack and was formed to say, "Hey we have a group of people that represent our users. They can't really do anything - but at least we can say they have representation."</p> <p>And how do I know that the User committee - has no teeth? I looked at the <a href="http://www.openstack.org/legal/bylaws-of-the-openstack-foundation" target="_blank">bylaws (4.14)</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">4.14 User Committee. The User Committee shall be an <strong>advisory</strong> committee to the Board of Directors and shall be comprised of at least three (3) Individual Members, one (1) appointed by the Technical Committee, one (1) appointed by the Board of Directors, and one (1) appointed by the appointees of the Technical Committee and Board of Directors. The User Committee shall organize its meetings and may, on approval of the Board of Directors, create elected seats to be filled by a vote of the Individual Members. On request of the User Committee, the Board of Directors shall invite the User Committee to attend each regular quarterly meeting and shall allocate at least one (1) hour during the regular quarterly meeting following the annual election to hear the report and recommendations of the User Committee. On request of the User Committee, the Technical Committee shall invite the User Committee to attend a regular meeting and <strong>shall allocate at least one (1) hour</strong> during such meeting <strong>up to four times</strong> each calendar year to hear the report and recommendations of the User Committee.</font></em></p></blockquote> <p>The UC (User Committee) has to request to be invited to attend the BOD (Board of Directors) meeting. The UC has to request to attend the TC (Technical Committee) regular meetings and will be given at maximum <strong>4 hours <u>a year</u></strong> to give recommendations and report.</p> <p>There is not a single word about what the UC actually can do besides participate in meeting and pass recommendations. Do these recommendations have to be accepted? Can they change anything? That is at the discretion of the TC and the Board.</p> <p>What does the TC do - or what can they do? First the TC <a href="http://governance.openstack.org/reference/charter.html" target="_blank">Charter</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>The Technical Committee (“TC”) is tasked with providing the <strong>technical leadership</strong> for OpenStack as a whole (all official projects, as defined below). It <strong>enforces</strong> OpenStack ideals (Openness, Transparency, Commonality, Integration, Quality...), <strong>decides</strong> on issues affecting multiple projects, forms an ultimate appeals board for <strong>technical decisions</strong>, and generally has <strong>technical oversight</strong> over all of OpenStack.</em></font></p></blockquote> <p>Again back to the bylaws (4.13)</p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>4.13 Technical Committee.<br>(a) The Technical Committee shall be selected as provided in the Technical Committee Member Policy in Appendix 4.<br>(b) (i) The Technical Committee shall have the authority to manage the OpenStack Project, including the authority to determine the scope of the OpenStack Technical Committee Approved Release subject to the procedures set forth below. No changes to the OpenStack Technical Committee Approved Release which deletes all or part of the then current Trademark Designated OpenStack Software. shall be approved by the Technical Committee without approval as provided in the Coordination Procedures. After such approval, the Secretary shall post such description to the Foundation’s website.</em></font></p></blockquote> <p>Do you notice the difference in tone? This is the committee that decides what happens within the OpenStack projects, who is added, who is not, who is removed, what directions are taken, etc. etc.</p> <p>Sorry for jumping around, but back to the <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-operators/2016-March/009795.html" target="_blank">thread</a>.</p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>Right, this brings up the other important point I meant to make. The purpose of the "ATC" designation is to figure out who gets to vote for the Technical Committee, as a form of self-governance. That's all, but it's very important (in my opinion, far, far, far more important than some look-at-me status on a conference badge or a hand-out on free admission to an event). <strong>Granting votes for the upstream technical governing body to people who aren't involved directly in upstream technology decisions makes little sense, or at least causes it to cease being self-governance</strong> (as much as letting all of OpenStack's software developers decide who should run the User Committee would make it no longer well represent downstream users).</em></font></p></blockquote> <p>Again - I read this is as - let the developers write their code and keep Operators <strong>far away</strong> from having anything to do with how OpenStack projects are managed. Because they have no business here.</p> <h3>The Solution?</h3> <p>Which led me to write this <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-operators/2016-March/009796.html" target="_blank">answer</a>. I would like to re-iterate what I said on that thread.</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Operator contributions to OpenStack are no less important or no less equal than that of anyone writing code or translating UI's or writing documentation.<br>By saying that someone who contributes to OpenStack - but doing so by not writing code are not entitled to any technical say in what directions OpenStack should pursue or how OpenStack should be governed, is IMHO a weird (to put it nicely) perception of equality.</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">So I see two options.</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Ops Contributors are considered Active Technical Contributors - just the same as anyone writing code - or fixing a spelling mistake in documentation (and yes submitting a patch to correct a typo in a document - <strong>does give you ATC status</strong>). Their contributions are just as important to the success of the community as anyone else.<br>or<br>Give Ops contributors a different status (whatever the name may be) - and change the governance laws to allow these people with this status a voting right in the Technical committee. They have as much right as any other contributor to cast their opinion on how the TC should govern and what direction it should choose.</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">By alienating Operators (and yes it is harsh word - but that is the feeling that many Operators - me included - have at the moment) from having a say in - how OpenStack should run, what release cycles should be - what the other side of the fence is experiencing each and every day due to problems in OpenStack's past and possible potential trouble with the future - reminds me of a time in the not so far back history where not all men/women were equal.</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Where some were allowed to vote, and others not - they were told that others could decide for them - because those others knew what was best.</font></em></p></blockquote> <p>OpenStack's 12th release - Mitaka - is coming up very soon. That means that OpenStack will soon be 6 years old.<br>I think it is time for OpenStack - including the developer community - to accept that they are no longer alone in this - there is a whole lot of information, knowledge and experience that can be reaped from all those who are actually using the products that the community produces and it is now time to accepts all contributors - in whatever way they may choose to do so - as <strong>equal</strong> members - in <strong>every</strong> way.</p> <p>Yes there may be disadvantages, there also could be many advantages as well. But it time to stop treating everyone that does not write code as a "second degree citizen". Because at the moment OpenStack Technical community flaunt that everyone is part of OpenStack - but de-facto - they are most certainly not.</p> <p>There will be a new working group formed (<a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/NonATCRecognition" target="_blank">Non-ATC Recognition Working Group</a>) in the very near future. I plan to be a very active member of this group - with my personal end goal of finally getting <strong>all</strong> contributors to the OpenStack community - and not only those who actually contribute code - as equals - with equal say - in all aspects of OpenStack - yes - including Technical leadership and decisions.</p> <p><strong>(I consider myself an Operator - my view could be biased)</strong></p>Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-51609940235254808322015-11-16T23:57:00.000+02:002018-08-19T12:07:04.282+03:00Is the #OpenStack Leopard Changing its Spots?<p>A short while back I tweeted the following:</p> <p> <blockquote lang="en" class="twitter-tweet"> <p lang="en" dir="ltr">Has hell frozen over? There is <a href="http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/tc/2015/tc.2015-11-03-20.07.log.html#l-258" target="_blank">actual talk</a> about prioritizing stability over landing new features. Times are a changin' <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpenStack?src=hash">#OpenStack</a></p>— Maish Saidel-Keesing (@maishsk) <a href="https://twitter.com/maishsk/status/662318811379552256">November 5, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>This was a result of me reading the minutes of the OpenStack Technical committee from November 3rd, 2015 (full log is <a href="http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/tc/2015/tc.2015-11-03-20.07.log.html" target="_blank">here</a>) </p> <p>What pleasantly surprises me is that this might finally becoming a viable option.</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/08ae543c5dd7_8A62/6709400755_23bd05a647_z.jpg"><img title="Leopard spots" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Leopard spots" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/08ae543c5dd7_8A62/6709400755_23bd05a647_z_thumb.jpg" width="260" align="right" height="164"></a></p> <p>Let me first go into the background of my trail of thoughts. <br>I really enjoy working with OpenStack, but I also really hate working with OpenStack. A good old love/hate relationship. </p> <p>There are <strong>amazing</strong> things about this community, the way we work, and the software we produce (just to name two). </p> <p>On the other hand there are really <strong>bad</strong> things about this community, namely – the way we work, and the software we produce. </p> <p>One might say that is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxymoron" target="_blank">oxymoron</a> (I am not calling anyone stupid though). But yes it is true. The OpenStack community produces amazing things – or at least that is until someone (let’s call them an Operator) tries to actually use this in a production environment, and then they find out until it is completely and totally, not ready, in any way for production use. </p> <p>So this Operator tries to raise his concerns, why this is not useable, these are valid concerns and maybe these should be fixed. But unfortunately they have no way of actually getting this done, because – the feedback loop is completely broken. Operators have no way of getting that information back in. The community has no interest in opening up a new conduit into the developer community – because they are fixated on working in a specific way.</p> <p>I must stress and honestly say, that this was the case up until approximately a year ago. Since then the OpenStack community has embarked on a number of initiatives that are making this a much easier process, and we are actually seeing some change (see the title of this post).</p> <p>For me the question actually is – what sparked this change? Up until now I was under the impression that the OpenStack community (and I mean the developers) was of the opinion that they are driving the requirements and development goals, but it seems as of late – this could be shifting.</p> <p>To me this is going to have a significant effect of what OpenStack is, and how it moves forward. </p> <p>For better and for worse. Time will tell.</p> <p>What do you all think? Please feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-9478985635398545422015-07-29T18:37:00.001+03:002018-08-19T12:15:52.064+03:00OpenStack Summit Voting - By the Numbers<p>I love diving into numbers – especially when it has something to do with technology conferences.</p> <p>But before I do that I would to bring to your attention my two sessions that I have submitted for the upcoming summit (Shameless Plug.. )</p> <p><a href="https://www.openstack.org/summit/tokyo-2015/vote-for-speakers/presentation/4572" target="_blank">Me Tarzan, you Jane (or Operators are not Developers)</a></p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Welcoming Operators to the OpenStack Jungle. </em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>A year ago I set out on a journey on trying to help the OpenStack developer community understand the other (and sometimes not well understood) side of the OpenStack community, its users.</em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Users is a subjective term, depending on who you ask - it could mean the end user using an API or a GUI to deploy a new instance but it also includes those who operate the cloud, maintain it and sweat blood an tears to just allow the end-user to do what he wants.</em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>There is distinct separation today between the two entities - but the good part is that they are slowly coming together.</em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>This talk will describe how you an Operator can make a difference - be it small or large - in OpenStack.</em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>The topics we will go over here are:</em></strong></font></p> <ul> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Initiatives</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>User Committee</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>WTE</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>ISV</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Monitoring &amp; Logging</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Large Deployments</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>... and many more.... </em></strong></font></li></ul> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Operator specific activities:</em></strong></font></p> <ul> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Ops Tags</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>IRC</em></strong></font> <li><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Heaven forbid - committing code</em></strong></font></li></ul> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>Expect some interesting stories, some horror stories but we are all aiming for the same thing.</em></strong></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.</em></strong></font></p></blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.openstack.org/summit/tokyo-2015/vote-for-speakers/presentation/4577" target="_blank">OpenStack - High Availability (as a Service) - Fact? Fiction (or maybe something in between)?</a></p> <blockquote> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Installing an OpenStack cloud used to be a complex task. We have evolved over time and made this a lot easier and more palatable for operators. Operating an OpenStack cloud on the other hand is whole different ball game..</font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Operators want stable systems and resilient systems, and if the infrastructure services can scale that would only be an added benefit. </font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">But today, OpenStack as a result of its culture, and its history, is a collection of parts, pieces and solutions using multiple different technologies, and architectures. </font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">One of the pain points is naturally high availability for the services which are provided today in a number of different ways. </font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">This talk will propose one possible future direction with which this could be addressed. </font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">By providing a central HA service for all OpenStack projects.</font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">This session will describe a proof of concept for such solution showing making use of cloud friendly technologies that can could take the level of operations to whole new dimension.</font></em></strong></p></blockquote> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>I did this kind of an exercise for VMworld a few years ago - <a href="https://technodrone.blogspot.com/2013/04/by-numbers-vmworld-2013-session-voting.html" target="_blank">By the Numbers - VMworld 2013 Session Voting</a>, and I thought it would be interesting to see what the numbers are for this OpenStack Summit. </p> <p>Of course without some insight as well – the numbers would be quite boring.</p> <p><strong>There are a total of 1504 sessions that you can cast your vote upon. </strong></p> <p>That is a <strong><u>huge</u></strong> number of sessions. Perhaps too many. There is no way to go over the list in a defined amount of time. I think that most of the people are going to vote only if they are sent directly to a specific link. Which means this will be <strong>targeted</strong> votes as a result of someone asking you specifically vote for a specific session. Not really an ideal process but I guess that is the price we all have to pay, as a result of OpenStack becoming more and more popular. </p> <p>Here are the number of sessions submitted for each track: <br><font size="2"><font color="#ff0000">(Please Note – these are based on the pure number of submissions – and not what has been accepted. This is not an exact science – there could be a number of reasons why they are ranked like this – but these are my thoughts and ideas on the data below)</font></font></p> <p><img title="session numbers" alt="session numbers" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/OpenStack-Summit-VotingAnalyzing-the-num_884F/image_thumb.png"></p> <p>What is the most <strong>popular track</strong>?&nbsp; </p> <p><strong>Operations -</strong> the one part that the OpenStack community is still struggling to get their input back into the projects. For a number of reasons. Be it inclusion, methodology, culture or mindset.</p> <p>For me this is / should be (also for everyone that is involved in OpenStack as well) a bright and shiny beacon. Claiming that this is either the most important aspect or the most pressing need that people want to hear about or want to talk about might be going a bit far, but it is way, way up there. </p> <p>OpenStack Summits should be about the technology, not about how keep the bits and bytes up and running, deployed and working in an efficient manner.</p> <p>Next up on the list. <strong>Community and How to Contribute</strong>. Way down there in at the bottom. Is that because people already know how to do it? Because people have given up on trying? </p> <p>This is something that the community as a whole should invest more in making it part of the culture and making the bar much more accessible to all.</p> <p><strong>Hands on Labs</strong>. The number of sessions proposed as labs is growing. Maybe it is time to think about a centralized solution specifically for the summit? </p> <p><strong>Neutron (a.k.a. Networking)</strong>. The hardest part about a cloud is the networking part. I have said this before and will continue to preach it from the rooftops.</p> <p>I took the liberty of creating a word-cloud of from all the words in all the submissions according to recurrence.</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/OpenStack-Summit-VotingAnalyzing-the-num_884F/WordItOut-word-cloud-987087.png"><img title="Word Cloud" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="Word Cloud" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/OpenStack-Summit-VotingAnalyzing-the-num_884F/WordItOut-word-cloud-987087_thumb.png" width="640" height="485"></a></p> <p>It makes you think..&nbsp;&nbsp; :)</p> <p>You have only one more day to vote – <strong>go and make your voice heard</strong>!</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-79395433281915787142015-07-20T12:05:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:16:10.991+03:00Hybrid vs. Public - Google Joins OpenStack<p>This was a big piece of news <a href="https://googlecloudplatform.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/Containers-Private-Cloud-Google-Sponsors-OpenStack-Foundation.html" target="_blank">last week</a>. There are some that even are suggesting (but not really) that the Google stock <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-share-price-hits-all-time-high-1437141035" target="_blank">jumped drastically</a> as a result of this announcement, I personally find that just a good joke (and some wishful thinking).</p> <p>A snippet from the Google post:</p> <blockquote> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em><strong>As we look to the future of computing in the enterprise, we see two important trends emerging.</strong></em></font></p> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><em><strong>The first is a move towards the hybrid cloud.&nbsp; Few enterprises can move their entire infrastructure to the public cloud. For most, hybrid deployments will be the norm and OpenStack is emerging as a standard for the on-premises component of these deployments.</strong></em></font></p></blockquote> <p><strong>For me this is a gauntlet thrown directly in the face of AWS. </strong></p> <p>Amazon has always pushed that everything should and can run in the public cloud. They have never believed in the hybrid cloud model. It was all AWS or nothing. I have never agreed with this statement, and still don’t.</p> <p>There will always be things that need to run in house – for a number of possible reasons:</p> <ul> <li>security <a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/4c799017063e_A33E/5222217854_95141a55b0_z.jpg"><img title="5222217854_95141a55b0_z" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 10px 0px 8px 13px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="5222217854_95141a55b0_z" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/4c799017063e_A33E/5222217854_95141a55b0_z_thumb.jpg" width="275" align="right" height="194"></a></li> <li>regulation</li> <li>the nature of the workload</li> <li>politics</li></ul> <p>AWS has tried over the years to provide adaptations/solutions and tools to ease the journey into the private cloud – such as <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/vpc/" target="_blank">VPC</a> or <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/" target="_blank">Direct Connect</a> to enable you to extend your datacenter to the public cloud – but still have it feel as if it was in-house. But that is not hybrid.</p> <p>I think that this is a great move on Google’s part and their ‘bear-hug’ of OpenStack.</p> <p>It will be interesting to see what this collaboration brings into the OpenStack world.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-66955650367385964842015-07-13T23:11:00.001+03:002018-08-19T12:16:28.010+03:00Registration is Open for the OpenStack Tokyo Summit<p>Even though we still do not know what the next release of OpenStack will yet be called (due to some <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-July/068935.html" target="_blank">community naming issues</a>) – this is still an event I am very much looking forward to.</p> <p><a href="https://openstacksummitoctober2015tokyo.eventbrite.com/" target="_blank">Registration is open</a> for the event.<br><br><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Registration-of-the-OpenStack-Tokyo-Summ_143D4/openstack_tokyo_3.jpg"><img title="openstack_tokyo" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack_tokyo" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Registration-of-the-OpenStack-Tokyo-Summ_143D4/openstack_tokyo_thumb_3.jpg" width="620" height="230"></a></p> <p>Early bird tickets are $600 (until August 31st, 2015)</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-36839846312653783602015-06-28T13:00:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:16:49.439+03:00Downloading all sessions from the #OpenStack Summit<p>A question was just posted to the OpenStack mailing list – and this is not the first time I have seen this request.</p> <blockquote> <p><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack/2015-June/013176.html" target="_blank"><font face="Meiryo UI"><em>Can openstack conference video files be downloaded?</em></font></a></p></blockquote> <p>A while back I wrote a post about how you can download all the <a href="https://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/05/vbrownbag-at-openstack-summit.html" target="_blank">vBrownBag sessions from the past OpenStack summit</a>.</p> <p>Same thing applies here, with a slight syntax change.</p> <p>You can use the same tool – <a href="http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/" target="_blank">youtube-dl</a> (just the version has changed since that post – and therefore some of the syntax is different as well).</p> <p>Download youtube-dl and make the file executable</p> <p><font size="2" face="Courier New">curl </font><a href="https://yt-dl.org/downloads/2015.06.25/youtube-dl"><font size="2" face="Courier New">https://yt-dl.org/downloads/2015.06.25/youtube-dl</font></a><font size="2" face="Courier New"> \ <br></font><font size="2" face="Courier New">-o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl<br>chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl</font></p> <p><font size="2"><font face="Courier New"><font face="Arial">The videos are available on the OpenStack <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenStackFoundation/videos" target="_blank">Youtube</a> channel.</font></font></font></p> <p><font size="2">What you are looking for is all the videos that were uploaded from the Summit, that would mean between May 18th, 2015 and May 30th, 2015.</font></p> <p><font size="2">The command to do that would be </font></p> <p><font face="Courier New">youtube-dl -ci -f best --dateafter 20150518 \ <br></font><font face="Courier New">--datebefore 20150529 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenStackFoundation/videos">https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenStackFoundation/videos</a><font size="2"></p> <p><font face="Arial">The options I have used are:</font></p> <p><font face="Arial"><font face="Courier New">-c</font> - Force resume of partially downloaded files. By default, youtube-dl will resume downloads if possible.<br><font face="Courier New">-i</font>&nbsp; - Continue on download errors, for example to skip unavailable videos in a playlist.<br><font face="Courier New">-f best</font> - Download the best quality video available.<br><font face="Courier New">--dateafter</font> - Start after date<br><font face="Courier New">--datebefore</font> – Up until date specified</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Be advised.. This will take a while – and will use up a decent amount of disk space.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Happy downloading !!</font></font></font></p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-72460199618179280992015-06-01T16:53:00.002+03:002018-08-19T12:17:08.306+03:00The OpenStack Summit Kilo Summit - RecapI have been home for just over a week from my trip to Vancouver for the OpenStack Kilo Summit (or Liberty Design Summit – take your pick). <br><br>It was a whirlwind of week, jam packed with sessions, conversations, meetings, presentations and community events.<br><br> <div class="separator" style="text-align: center; clear: both"><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: left; clear: left; margin-right: 1em" href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/27928e18687f_140D9/openstack_summit_logo_thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/27928e18687f_140D9/openstack_summit_logo_thumb.jpg" width="640" height="171"></a></div><br><br><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em; clear: right" href="https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5819640694385843490" imageanchor="1"></a><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em; clear: right" href="https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5819640694385843490" imageanchor="1"></a><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em; clear: right" href="https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5819640694385843490" imageanchor="1"></a><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em; clear: right" href="https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5819640694385843490" imageanchor="1"></a><a style="margin-bottom: 1em; float: right; margin-left: 1em; clear: right" href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/27928e18687f_140D9/openstack_summit_logo.jpg"></a>There were a number of insights that I took with me and I would like to share with you in this post, and also in some upcoming posts in the future.<br><br> <h3>1. OPs is a real thing</h3><br>There was a dedicated OPs track at the summit. Before we go into what actually happened there – I would like to clarify what I mean as OPs and if this is any different to the perception of how it is defined by the OpenStack community.<br><br>For me an operator is primarily the person that has to actually maintain the cloud infrastructure. This could be a number of things: <br> <ul> <li>Create packages for installing OpenStack <li>Actually installing OpenStack <li>Making sure that OpenStack keeps up and running <li>Monitors the infrastructure <li>Upgrades the infrastructure </li></ul><br>There are also end-users, and these are the people that actually use OpenStack: <br> <ul> <li>Provision instances <li>Deploy applications on top of those instances <li>Create tenants/users/projects </li></ul><br>For the OpenStack Community – sometimes these two groups are one and the same, and in my honest opinion they definitely are not – and should not be treated as such. It is taking time, but I think that the community is starting to understand that there are two distinct groups here, which have very different sets of needs, and should be catered to quite differently<br><br>There was a significant amount of discussion of how Operators can get more involved, and honestly I must say that the situation has improved – drastically – in comparison to the situation 12 months ago. <br><br>There are a number of working groups, the Win The Enterprise WG, the Product WG, the Monitoring and Logging WG, all of these have been meeting over the last year to try and hash out ways of getting more involved.<br><br>One of the interesting discussions that came out as a result (well perhaps not directly but I assume that I had something to do with it) of me running for the OpenStack TC was how does the OpenStack Community want to acknowledge those people that are not committing code but are contributing back into the community. To get some more background – I refer you to these threads on the mailing list. <br> <ul> <li><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062960.html">Who is allowed to vote for TC candidates</a> <li><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062372.html">TC Candidacy</a> </li></ul><br>Something that kept on coming up again and again in sessions was that the Project groups are looking for more and more feedback from the people operating and deploying OpenStack, but the process of getting that feedback is broken/not working/problematic.<br><br>I do understand that the TC (and OpenStack) would like to protect the most valued resource that OpenStack has – and that of course is the people writing the code. <br><br>But there has to be an easier way of allowing people to submit the feedback – and perhaps there is…<br><a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-May/064173.html">A way for Operators/Users to submit feature requests</a>.<br><br> <h3>2. Vendors are involved in OpenStack – and they are here to stay</h3><br>They are not there for the good of their hearts. They are there because they want to make money, and a lot of it. That is one (but not the only) reason why they contribute to open source projects. <br><br>OpenStack is no different. Each and every one of the vendors involved (and I will not name companies – because the sheer size of the list is just too long) are there to increase their market share, their revenue, their influence.<br><br>And that is a difficult dance to master. They are the ones providing resources to commit code and there are times where the agenda behind that is not purely community driven. This <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/2927409/openstack/early-openstack-contributor-says-cloud-project-has-lost-its-heart.html">post</a> – sums it up pretty well. <br><br> <blockquote class="tr_bq"><b><i>As OpenStack has grown he says its turned into a corporate open source project, not a community-driven one. He spent a day walking around the show-floor at the recent OpenStack Summit in Vancouver and said he didn’t find anyone talking about the original mission of the project. "Everyone’s talking about who’s making money, who’s career is advancing, how much people get paid, how many workloads are in production," McKenty says. "The mission was to do things differently."</i></b></blockquote> <p><br>OpenStack is not a small community project any more – where everyone knows each other by name/face/IRC handle. It has grown up, come of age.</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack-Summit-Kilo-Summit---Recap_D0E6/8027924487_8de68d940d_z.jpg"><img title="8027924487_8de68d940d_z" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; display: block; padding-right: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="8027924487_8de68d940d_z" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack-Summit-Kilo-Summit---Recap_D0E6/8027924487_8de68d940d_z_thumb.jpg" width="380" height="260"></a><br>For better or for worse. Stay tuned for more. <br><br>As always please feel free to add your thoughts and comments below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-20412332569507588092015-05-17T12:00:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:17:18.984+03:00Integrating OpenStack into your Jenkins workflow<p>This is a re-post of my interview with Jason Baker of <a href="http://opensource.com" target="_blank">opensource.com</a></p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Continuous integration and continuous delivery are changing the way software developers create and deploy software. For many developers, Jenkins is the go-to tool for making CI/CD happen. But how easy is it to integrate Jenkins with your OpenStack cloud platform?</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Meet Maish Saidel-Keesing. Maish is a platform architect for Cisco in Israel focused on making OpenStack serve as a platform upon which video services can be deployed. He works to integrate a number of complementary solutions with the default out-of-the-box OpenStack project and to adapt Cisco's projects to have a viable cloud deployment model.</font></em></p> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI">At OpenStack Summit in Vancouver next week, Maish is giving a talk called: The Jenkins Plugin for OpenStack: Simple and Painless CI/CD. I caught up with Maish to learn a little more about his talk, continous integration, and where OpenStack is headed.</font></em></p></blockquote> <h3><strong><u>Interview</u></strong></h3> <h4><br>Without giving too much away, what can attendees expect to learn from your talk?</h4> <p>The attendees will learn about the journey that we went through 6-12 months ago, when we looked at using OpenStack as our compute resource for the CI/CD pipeline for several of our products. I'll cover the challenges we faced, why other solutions were not suitable, and how we overcame these challenges with a Jenkins plugin that we developed for our purposes, which we are open sourcing to the community at the summit.</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/27928e18687f_140D9/openstack_summit_logo.jpg"><img title="openstack_summit_logo" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack_summit_logo" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/27928e18687f_140D9/openstack_summit_logo_thumb.jpg" width="640" height="175"></a></p> <h4>What affects has CI/CD had on the development of software in recent years?</h4> <p>I think that CI/CD has allowed software developers to provide a better product for their customers. In allowing them to continuously deploy and test their software, they can provide better code. In addition, it has brought the developers closer to the actual deployments in the field. In the past, there was a clear disconnect between the people writing the software and those who deployed and supported it at the customer.</p> <h4>How can a developer integrate OpenStack into their Jenkins workflow?</h4> <p>Using the plugin we developed it is very simple to integrate an OpenStack cloud as part of the resources that can be consumed in your Jenkins workflow. All the users will need is to provide a few parameters, such as endpoints, credentials, etc., and they will be able to start deploying to their OpenStack cloud.</p> <h4>How is the open source nature of this workflow an advantage for the organizations using it?</h4> <p>An open source project always has the benefit of having multiple people contributing and improving the code. It is always a good thing to have another view on a project with a fresh outlook. It improves the functionality, the quality and the overall experience for everyone.</p> <h4>Looking more broadly to the OpenStack Summit, what are you most excited about for Vancouver?</h4> <p>First and foremost, I look forward to networking with my peers. It is a vibrant and active community.</p> <p>I would also like to see some tighter collaboration between the operators, the User Committee, the Technical Committee, and the projects themselves to understand what the needs are of those deploying and maintaining OpenStack in the field and to help them to achieve their goals.</p> <p>One of the major themes I think we will see from this summit will be the spotlight on companies, organizations and others using the products. We'll see why they moved, and how OpenStack solves their problems. Scalability is no longer in question: scaling is a fact.</p> <h4>Where do you see OpenStack headed, in the Liberty release and beyond?</h4> <p>The community has undergone a big change in the last year, trying to define itself in a clearer way: what is OpenStack, and what it is not.</p> <p>I hope that all involved continue to contribute, and that the projects focus more on features and problems that are fed to them from the field. It is fine line to define, and usually not a clear one, but something that OpenStack (and all those who consider themselves part of the OpenStack community) have to address and solve, together.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-21756701470784257362015-05-13T13:00:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:17:36.970+03:00Some Vendors I Will Visit at the OpenStack Summit<p>At all technology conference I always like to go on to Floor / Marketplace / Solutions Exchange – where vendors try to get your attention and market their product. </p> <p>Going over the list of vendors from Summit <a href="https://www.openstack.org/assets/vancouver-summit/OSYVR-WEB-COMP-FINAL-REV2.pdf" target="_blank">site</a>, the list below are some of the less know companies (at least to me) that caught my eye and I would like to go over during the summit and see what they have to say. </p> <p><strong>** The blurb I posted is something that I found on each of the respective sites, and does not necessarily provide a comprehensive overview of what each company offers **</strong></p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Vendors-to-Visit-at-the-OpenStack-Summit_81BF/openstack_summit_logo.jpg"><img title="openstack_summit_logo" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack_summit_logo" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Vendors-to-Visit-at-the-OpenStack-Summit_81BF/openstack_summit_logo_thumb.jpg" width="640" height="175"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.activestate.com/stackato" target="_blank"><strong><u>Stackato</u></strong></a><br>Stackato allows agile enterprises to develop and deploy software solutions faster than ever before and manage them more effectively. Stackato provides development teams with built-in languages, frameworks and services on one single cloud application platform, while providing enterprise-level security and world-class support.</p> <p><a href="http://akanda.io/" target="_blank"><strong>Akanda</strong></a><br>Akanda is the only open source network virtualization solution built by OpenStack operators for real OpenStack clouds. Akanda eliminates the need for complex SDN controllers, overlays and multiple plugins for cloud networking by providing a simple integrated networking stack (routing, firewall, load balancing) for connecting and securing multi-tenant OpenStack environments.</p> <p><a href="http://www.appcito.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Appcito</strong></a><br>Appcito Cloud Application Front-End™ (CAFE) is an easy-to-deploy, unified and cloud-native service that enables cloud application teams to innovate faster and improve user experiences with their applications.</p> <p><a href="http://www.appformix.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Appformix</strong></a><br>Operators and developers can use AppFormix’s versatile software to remove and prevent resource contention among applications from the infrastructure without being invasive to applications. The real-time, state driven control provided by AppFormix’s intuitive dashboard allows efficient management of all I/O resources. For deeper control and customization, access to API driven controls are also easily accessible. Plan infrastructure intelligently and remove the guess work involved in managing finite server resources to create fully optimized data center infrastructure.</p> <p><a href="http://www.caringo.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Caringo</strong></a><br>Caringo Swarm leverages simple and emergent behavior with decentralized coordination to handle any rate, flow or size of data. Swarm turns standard hardware into a reliable pool of resources that adapts to any workload or use case while offering a foundation for new data services.</p> <p><a href="http://www.cleversafe.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Cleversafe</strong></a><br>Cleversafe’s decentralized, shared-nothing storage architecture enables performance and capacity to scale independently, reaching petabyte levels and beyond.</p> <p><a href="http://www.guardicore.com/" target="_blank"><strong>GuardiCore</strong></a><br>Covering all the traffic inside datacenters, GuardiCore offers the only solution combining real-time detection of threats based on deep analysis of actual traffic, real time understanding, mitigation and remediation.</p> <p><a href="http://www.oneconvergence.com/" target="_blank"><strong>OneConvergence</strong></a><br>One Convergence Network Virtualization and Service Delivery (NVSD) Solution takes a policy driven approach and brings in the innovative concept of “Service Overlays” to go along with “Network Overlays” to virtualize networks and services. The solution innovates and extends SDN with Service Overlays for delivering L4 to L7 services with higher-level abstractions that are application friendly. </p> <p><a href="http://www.quobyte.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Quobyte</strong></a><br>Quobyte turns your servers into a horizontal software-defined storage infrastructure. It is a complete storage product that can host any application out-of-the-box. Through fault-tolerance, flexible placement and integrated automation, Quobyte decouples configuration and operations from hardware.</p> <p><a href="http://www.scality.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Scality</strong></a><br>The RING is a software-based storage that is built to scale to petabytes with performance, scaling and protection mechanisms appropriate for such scale. It enables your business to grow without limitations and extra overhead, works across 80% of your applications, and protects your data over 200% more efficiently at 50–70% lower cost.</p> <p><a href="http://www.scalr.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Scalr</strong></a><br>The Scalr Cloud Management Platform packages all the cloud best practices in an extensible piece of software, giving your engineers the head start they need to finally focus on creating customer value, not on solving cloud problems.</p> <p><a href="https://storpool.com/" target="_blank"><strong>StorPool Storage</strong></a><br>StorPool is storage software. It runs on standard hardware – servers, drives, network – and turns them into high-performance storage system. StorPool replaces traditional storage arrays, all-flash arrays or other inferior storage software (SDS 1.0 solutions).</p> <p><a href="http://www.stratoscale.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Stratoscale</strong></a><br>Stratoscale’s software transforms standard x86 servers into a hyper-converged infrastructure solution<br>combining high-performance storage with efficient cloud services, while supporting both<br>containers and virtualization on the same platform.</p> <p><a href="http://www.transcirrus.com/" target="_blank"><strong>TransCirrus</strong></a><br>Core, storage and compute nodes connecting via Extreme Networks</p> <p><a href="http://www.tufin.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Tufin</strong></a><br>Security Policy Orchestration for the World's Largest Enterprises.<br>Managing security policies on multi-vendor firewalls &amp; cloud platforms.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-90785468071208475932015-05-11T12:15:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:18:04.971+03:00Get Ready for the OpenStack Summit<p>The OpenStack community is converging on Vancouver next week for the bi-annual summit for all things OpenStack. </p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Get-Ready-for-the-OpenStack-Summit_1315D/openstack_summit_logo.jpg"><img title="openstack_summit_logo" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack_summit_logo" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Get-Ready-for-the-OpenStack-Summit_1315D/openstack_summit_logo_thumb.jpg" width="640" height="175"></a></p> <p>I am glad to be joining the event and I would like to share with you a short outline of what public events and activities I will participating in.</p> <ul> <li>Monday May 18th, 13:30 – <a href="http://www.nextcast.net/openstackpod/" target="_blank">OSpod</a> with <a href="https://twitter.com/nikiacosta" target="_blank">Niki Akosta</a> and <a href="http://www.nextcast.net/bio-1-1" target="_blank">Jeff Dickey</a></li> <li>Monday May 18th, 15:00 - vBrownbag Presentation, “The Oh..!! moment in OpenStack”</li> <li>Tuesday May 19th, 17:30 - <a href="https://openstacksummitmay2015vancouver.sched.org/event/a8634037369b04b3c794a0eaf4a5b38e" target="_blank">The Jenkins Plugin for OpenStack: Simple and Painless CI/CD</a></li> <li>Wednesday May 20th, 09:00 – OpenStack and Beyond Podcast</li></ul> <p>The rest of my time will be spread out over the <a href="http://libertydesignsummit.sched.org/overview/type/design+summit/Cross+Project+workshops#.VU-tANOqqko" target="_blank">Cross-Project workshops</a>, the <a href="http://libertydesignsummit.sched.org/overview/type/design+summit/Ops#.VU-tHdOqqko" target="_blank">Ops sessions</a>, other sessions and activities.</p> <p>I am really looking forward to this event and please feel free to come and say hello.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-68986998195817481872015-04-27T12:00:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:18:19.705+03:00Why I Decided to Run for the OpenStack Technical Committee<p>As of late I have been thinking long and hard about if I can in some way contribute in a more efficient way into the OpenStack community. </p> <p>Almost all of my focus today is on OpenStack, on its architecture and how to deploy certain solutions on top such an infrastructure. </p> <p>What is the Technical Committee? </p> <p>It is a group of 13 elected people by the OpenStack ATC’s (Active Technical contributors – a.k.a the people that are actively contributing code to the projects over the last year). There are seven spots up for election for this term, in addition to the six TC members that were chosen 6 months ago for a term of one year.</p> <p>The TC’s Mission is defined as follows:</p> <blockquote> <p><em><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong>The Technical Committee (“TC”) is tasked with providing the technical leadership for OpenStack as a whole (all official projects, as defined below). It enforces OpenStack ideals (Openness, Transparency, Commonality, Integration, Quality...), decides on issues affecting multiple projects, forms an ultimate appeals board for technical decisions, and generally has technical oversight over all of OpenStack.</strong></font></em></p></blockquote> <p>On Thursday I decided to take the plunge. <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062372.html" target="_blank">Here is the email</a> where I announced my candidacy. </p> <p>This is not a paid job, if anything it more of a “second” part-time job – a voluntary part-time job. There are meetings, email discussions on a regular basis. </p> <p>There are a number of reasons that I am running for a spot on the TC. </p> <h4>Diversity</h4> <p>In my post <a href="https://technodrone.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-openstack-elections-another-look.html" target="_blank">The OpenStack Elections - Another Look</a>, I noted that operators were not chosen to for the board. This is something that I think is lacking in the OpenStack community today. The influence that the people who are actually using and deploying the software is minimal if at all. The influence they have is mostly after the fact (at best) and not much of an input of what they would like to have put into the product. </p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Why-I-decided-to-run-for-the-OpenStack-T_12EB9/openstack.jpg"><img title="openstack" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Why-I-decided-to-run-for-the-OpenStack-T_12EB9/openstack_thumb.jpg" width="260" align="right" height="103"></a>I am hoping to bring in a new perspective to the TC, to help&nbsp; them understand the needs of those who actually deploy the software and have to deal with it day in and day out. There are valid pain points that they have, and in my honest opinion they feel they are not being heard or not being taken into consideration, at least not enough in their eyes. </p> <h4>Acceptance of others</h4> <p>The people who vote are only those who contribute code. Those who have committed a patch to the OpenStack code repositories. That is the definition of an ATC. </p> <p>It is not easy to get a patch committed. Not at all (at least that is my opinion). You have to learn how to use the tools that the OpenStack community has in place. That takes time. I tried to ease the process with a Docker container to <a href="https://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/11/start-contributing-to-openstack-easy.html" target="_blank">help you along</a>. But even with that, it still seems (to me) that to get into this group of contributors takes time. </p> <p>It is understandable. There is a standard of doing things (and rightfully so) so the chances of you getting your change accepted the first time are slim, for a number of reasons that I will not go into in this post.</p> <p>I think that the definition of contributor should be expanded and not only limited to a those who write the code. There are a number of other ways to contribute. </p> <p>I know that this will not be an easy “battle to win”. I am essentially asking the people to relinquish the way they have been doing things for the past 5 years and allow those who are not developers, those who do not write the code, to steer the technical direction of OpenStack.</p> <p>I do think this will be in the best interest of everyone to extend the reach of OpenStack community, to branch out.</p> <p>More information on the actual election that will run until April 30th can be found <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2015-April/062525.html" target="_blank">here</a>. If you are one of the approximate 1,800 people who is an ATC, you should have received a ballot for voting.</p> <p>It will be interesting to see the results which should be out in a few days.</p> <p>As always your thoughts and comments are appreciated, please feel free to leave them below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-14143306018270298882015-04-20T13:15:00.000+03:002018-08-19T12:18:45.371+03:00OpenStack Israel CFP Voting is Open<p>I would like to bring to your attention that the voting for the sessions for the upcoming OpenStack Israel Summit on <a href="https://www.openstack-israel.org/#!register/c24vq" target="_blank">June 15th, 2015</a> is now open.</p> <p>Make your voice heard and participate in setting the agenda for the event!</p> <p><a href="https://www.openstack-israel.org/#!copy-of-call-for-papers/cu3y" target="_blank"><img title="image" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="image" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/OpenStack_AA10/image.png" width="640" height="398"></a></p> <p>You can find more information and the presentation that I gave last year in this post <a href="https://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/06/recap-openstack-israel-2014-openstackil.html" target="_blank">Recap - Openstack Israel 2014 #OpenStackIL</a> and for your convenience I have embedded the recording below.</p> <div id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:4628e402-ae70-4806-b594-6400be859db6" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" style="width: 448px; float: none; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px"><div><object width="448" height="252"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/AvdesnmCjYU?hl=en&amp;hd=1"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/AvdesnmCjYU?hl=en&amp;hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="448" height="252"></embed></object></div></div> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-71061947355397146062015-03-26T13:00:00.000+02:002018-08-19T12:19:47.971+03:00Installing OpenStack CLI clients on Mac OSX<p>I usually have a Linux VM that I use to perform some of my remote management tasks, such a OpenStack CLI commands. </p> <p>But since I now have a Mac (and yes I am in enjoying it!!) I thought why not do it natively on my Mac. The official documentation on installing clients is on the <a href="http://docs.openstack.org/user-guide/content/install_clients.html" target="_blank">OpenStack site</a>.</p> <p>This is how I got it done.</p> <p>Firstly install <a href="https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip" target="_blank">pip</a></p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>easy_install pip</strong></font></p> <p>Now to install the clients (keystone, glance, heat, nova, neutron, cinder, swift and the new OpenStack client)</p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>pip install python-keystoneclient python-novaclient python-heatclient python-swiftclient python-neutronclient python-cinderclient python-glanceclient python-openstackclient</strong></font></p> <p>First problem – was no permissions</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.20.05.png"><img title="No Permissions" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="No Permissions" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.20.05_thumb.png" width="640" height="214"></a></p> <p>Yes you do need sudo for some things…</p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>sudo –H pip install python-keystoneclient python-novaclient python-heatclient python-swiftclient python-neutronclient python-cinderclient python-glanceclient python-openstackclient</strong></font></p> <p>Success!</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.22.52.png"><img title="Success!" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Success!" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.22.52_thumb.png" width="640" height="102"></a></p> <p>Or so I thought…</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.24.22.png"><img title="Maybe not..." style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Maybe not..." src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.24.22_thumb.png" width="640" height="269"></a></p> <p>Google led me here - <a title="https://github.com/major/supernova/issues/55" href="https://github.com/major/supernova/issues/55">https://github.com/major/supernova/issues/55</a></p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>sudo –H pip uninstall six</strong></font></p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.26.18.png"><img title="uninstall six" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="uninstall six" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.26.18_thumb.png" width="640" height="305"></a></p> <p>And then </p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>sudo –H easy_install six</strong></font></p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.26.52.png"><img title="reinstall six" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="reinstall six" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.26.52_thumb.png" width="640" height="248"></a></p> <p>And all was good</p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.27.49.png"><img title="nova works" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="nova works" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.27.49_thumb.png" width="596" height="500"></a></p> <p><a href="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.29.35.png"><img title="nova list" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="nova list" src="https://maishsk.com/blog/images/Installing-the_8E98/Screen-Shot-2015-03-26-at-10.29.35_thumb.png" width="640" height="127"></a></p> <p>Quick and Simple!! Hope this is useful!</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-89642256239129885672015-02-10T21:21:00.000+02:002015-02-11T23:30:17.227+02:00VMware Integrated OpenStack - Cost Analysis<p>VMware announced last week the launch of <a href="https://www.vmware.com/il/products/openstack" target="_blank">VIO</a> and there are a number of things that I think people are missing and should be pointed out.</p> <p>The information I have taken is from the <a href="https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/openstack/VMware-Integrated-OpenStack-Datasheet.pdf" target="_blank">Datasheet</a> and publicly available information.</p> <h4>Networking</h4> <p>A great part of the the functionality and flexibility that people use is the option for flexible networking, i.e. creating private networks, routers for example. </p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image.png"><img title="NSX for Neutron" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="NSX for Neutron" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image_thumb.png" width="640" height="324"></a></p> <p>That is great – all the functionality is there – <a href="https://github.com/openstack/neutron/tree/master/neutron/plugins/vmware" target="_blank">with NSX</a>. But how many people are actually using NSX today? How many people have deployed NSX? In a <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/01/sdn-adoption-is-not-as-easy-as-you.html" target="_blank">previous article</a> I went through the reasons why this will not be an easy path. So how does that work with what I currently have in my datacenter? </p> <p>I think it is safe to assume that this will be deployed in an environment with a Distributed virtual switch – we are talking about environments that are using Enterprise Plus after all (and VMware is giving this away for free to everyone with the Ent+ licenses).</p> <p>So how does OpenStack work with a DvSwitch today? </p> <p>Well I am sorry to surprise you – <strong>but it does not</strong>. It only works with <a href="http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/config-reference/content/vmware.html#VMware_networking" target="_blank">nova-network</a> (which is supposed to be deprecated – so caveat emptor). VMware themselves have said that most customers that are using OpenStack and VMware are <a href="https://communities.vmware.com/message/2331311#2331311" target="_blank">using NSX</a> (and that they don’t really have much experience with nova-network).<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image_3.png"><img title="nova-network???" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="nova-network???" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image_thumb_3.png" width="660" height="149"></a></p> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">** Edited February 11th, 2015 **</font></strong></p> <p><strong>According to a twitter conversations with </strong><a href="http://twitter.com/hui_kenneth" target="_blank"><strong>@hui_kenneth</strong></a><strong> and </strong><a href="http://twitter.com/danwendlandt" target="_blank"><strong>@danwendlandt</strong></a><strong> last night – VIO GA will support the dvSwitch, only that information is currently not public and is only available to the Beta users. The functionality still will not bet the same as that of NSX.</strong></p> <p> <blockquote lang="en" class="twitter-tweet"> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/maishsk">@maishsk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hui_kenneth">@hui_kenneth</a> full docs are limited to beta customers. GA is very soon. Up to you if you want your blog to be accurate or not :)</p> <p>— dan wendlandt (@danwendlandt) <a href="https://twitter.com/danwendlandt/status/565257277029244931">February 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote> <p>So it boils down to this. The only way to really use OpenStack with vSphere today – in any kind of semi-normal way, <strong>is to do it with NSX</strong>. Any demo you have seen – Hands-on Labs, presentations all use NSX. And it always something that already exists in the environment you are working with, that is the assumption.</p> <p>So VMware is giving this away for free (unless you are interested in support – which will cost you another $200 per socket) – but this essentially is giving you a hobbled product – which does not have functionality that you get out of the OpenStack box – because you are using vSphere networking.</p> <p>So what features will you not be able to use – without NSX? </p> <ul> <li>No GRE – standard VLANs only <li>No LBaaS <li>No VPNaaS <li>No FWaaS <li>No security groups</li></ul> <p>I will say that the number of people that are actually using FWaaS and VPNaaS are not the majority of OpenStack users – but on the other LBaaS – is more or less an essential part of any automated cloud. And even more so – security groups are definitely an <u>essential</u> part of any cloud.</p> <p>But of course we would like to use all the bells and whistles – actually I would really only like to use Neutron with vSphere – so my options are only going to be to use NSX (until they manage to get this working as will with a dvSwitch). </p> <p>So what is this going to cost me? </p> <p><strong>This is going to hurt </strong>(and by no means am I licensing expert – and yes I know that no-one really pays list price – but here goes).</p> <p>You have two options to buy NSX – per vm or per socket. Now we all know that the per-vm model – usually does not run in the customers favor – and the last time a per-vm model was proposed – the was a huge disturbance in the force. So I am going to assume that you will want a per CPU based license.</p> <p>1 CPU license of NSX for vSphere (<a href="http://www.virtualizationworks.com/NSX.asp" target="_blank">NS-VS-C</a>) – $5,996<br>1 CPU SNS Basic support (<a href="http://www.virtualizationworks.com/NSX.asp" target="_blank">NX-VS-G-SSS-C</a>) for 1 CPU – $1,259<br>1 Year SNS Production support for VMware Integrated OpenStack for 1 CPU – $200<br>1 CPU license of VMware Integrated OpenStack (assuming you have Enterprise Plus) – $0</p> <p>Total cost for 1 CPU of VMware Integrated OpenStack – $5,996<br>Annual support costs for 1 CPU of VMware Integrated OpenStack (and NSX) – $1,459</p> <p>So let me lay this out in simple terms with an example. </p> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">** Post Updated February 11th **</font></strong></p> <p><strong>It was brought to my attention that there is a minimum purchase of 50 CPU licenses for OpenStack support as part of the </strong><a href="http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/openstack/VMware-Integrated-OpenStack-Faqs.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>FAQ</strong></a><strong> notes.<br></strong><br><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image_4.png"><img title="Minimum of 50" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" border="0" alt="Minimum of 50" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/image_thumb_4.png" width="660" height="402"></a></p> <p><strong>I did not change my assumption that you would only be using 4 hosts but the purchase of additional OpenStack CPU support s required.<br><br>I have therefore amended the numbers below.</strong> </p> <p>If you are interested in really using (i.e. with neutron and NSX) OpenStack on a 4 host (8 socket) cluster this will cost you:</p> <ul> <li>Initial cost <ul> <li>NSX licensing – 8x$5,996 = $47,968 <li><strike>SnS first year – 8x$(1,259 + 200) = $11,672</strike> <li>SnS first year – 8x1,259 + <strong>50x200</strong> = $20,072 <li><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="4"><strike>Total – $59,640</strike></font></strong> <li><strong><font color="#ff0000" size="4">Total – $68,040</font></strong></li></ul> <li>Annual costs <ul> <li><strike>SnS per year – $11,672</strike> <li>SnS per year – $20,072</li></ul></li></ul> <p>That is above and beyond the regular licensing fees that you pay for Enterprise Plus licenses (which I have not factored in here – because I am assuming that you already have them. But if you do not, then that is even more of a hit to your CAPEX.</p> <p>Again I would like to stress – that this is MSRP – and not including any bundles.</p> <h3><u>My Take</u></h3> <p>VMware would like to see the whole world run on their platform (obviously), and they have started to make a move to minimize the impact that I think they are starting to feel – due to people moving over OpenStack. This offering is a foot in the door to minimize the business they could lose from people moving off of their platform (seriously speaking though vCloud is a competing product – and I do not know how much longer they can continue to sell competing products). There are a number of benefits of running on top of vSphere of course, the underlying platform – and the hooks and insight into vRO is another one of course.</p> <p>That is one side of the story. The other side is NSX adoption – I do not think that VMware is seeing the market share that they were hoping to gain with NSX – network virtualization is still not a mainstream concept. Companies are starting to dabble and try – but no – we are not there yet.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/openstack.jpg"><img title="openstack" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="openstack" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/4f821de26ac5_8B79/openstack_thumb.jpg" width="600" height="220"></a></p> <p><strong>The ironic thing is that even with VIO integrated with NSX when it is released – it still <u>will not</u> support native LBaaS, VPNaaS and FWaaS out of the box (you probably will be able to integrate with 3rd party vendors) – that will probably come in a future release.</strong> </p> <p>So even with their flagship product – it still will not have all the functionality that OpenStack Operators/Users are accustomed to have in their environments today. </p> <p>There are benefits of having “one neck to throttle” so to speak – but that comes with a price tag – and hefty one. It certainly is <u>not</u> a free product as it is being made out to be – or at a <u>minimal</u> cost (VMware support). </p> <p>The devil is always in the details. </p> <p>What do you say? Is it financially viable? Would you use VIO? Why? Or would you rather rough it and go with another vendor?</p> <p>I would be happy to hear your thoughts, and comments. Please feel free to leave them in the comments below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-77167473863411485102015-01-21T22:59:00.001+02:002015-01-21T22:59:53.303+02:00The OpenStack Elections - Another Look<p>The Board of directors and the bylaws were approved. Summary posts can be found here (<a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/foundation/2015-January/001822.html" target="_blank">2015 Individual Director Election results</a>) and here (<a href="lists.openstack.org/pipermail/foundation/2015-January/001823.html" target="_blank">Bylaws amendments approved</a>).</p> <h4><font face="Arial"><strong><u>Individual Directors</u></strong></font></h4> <ul> <li><font face="Arial">Tim Bell</font> <li><font face="Arial">Russell Bryant</font> <li><font face="Arial">Alex Freedland</font> <li><font face="Arial">Rob Hirschfeld</font> <li><font face="Arial">Vishvananda Ishaya</font> <li><font face="Arial">Kavit Munshi</font> <li><font face="Arial">Egle Sigler</font> <li><font face="Arial">Monty Taylor</font></li></ul> <p>The voting numbers can be found <a href="https://www.bigpulse.com/pollresults?code=4465BagptIqcEjm73VjmEpTk" target="_blank">here</a>.</p> <p>Congratulations to all the new and re-elected board members. Well deserved!</p> <p>I have a few things I would like to add about the data that was presented – and my thoughts.</p> <h4>1. <a href="http://www.openstack.org/community/members/profile/88" target="_blank">Tim Bell</a>&nbsp;</h4> <p>Tim received the highest number of votes. CERN is a huge <a href="http://www.openstack.org" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> user and was <a href="https://www.openstack.org/summit/openstack-paris-summit-2014/session-videos/presentation/cern-openstack-user-story" target="_blank">showcased</a> at the summit in Paris. He is one of only 3 the board members that are not officially affiliated with a vendor directly involved in OpenStack. I see this as a big vote of confidence by the members of the foundation – that are interested in seeing more representation from non-affiliated members. Something I personally would like to see as well.</p> <h4>2. Participation Numbers</h4> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_991D/2015-01-21_04-22-06.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="2015-01-21_04-22-06" border="0" alt="2015-01-21_04-22-06" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_991D/2015-01-21_04-22-06_thumb.png" width="644" height="65"></a></p> <p>Only just over 16% of the members voted in the election. That to me seems to be very low. and I would like to address the OpenStack community to ask why this is so? This is actually something the Board and Foundation should also be actively looking into as well (perhaps they already are).</p> <ul> <li>Is it because people are not interested in participating? <li>Is it because the importance of the process was not made clear enough? <li>People did not find the candidates suitable?</li></ul> <p>More people actually voted for the amendment changes that in the election itself – which I find quite strange. They were already on the page and did not bother to vote for any of the candidates.</p> <h4>3. Operators were not chosen</h4> <p>Neither <a href="http://twitter.com/blueboxjesse" target="_blank">Jesse Proudman</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/randybias" target="_blank">Randy Bias</a> were voted in – both seemed to me that they were very vocal in their campaign as to why they wanted to get on the board – and that was to bring a change into the way OpenStack is currently “run”. I do personally think this is pity – because I would have liked to see more representation from the Operator standpoint, something which I still feel is still lacking in the OpenStack community.</p> <h4>4. Participation in Amendment changes</h4> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_991D/2015-01-21_04-30-49.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="2015-01-21_04-30-49" border="0" alt="2015-01-21_04-30-49" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_991D/2015-01-21_04-30-49_thumb.png" width="477" height="484"></a></p> <p>The quorum was achieved – but only by 315 votes. My previous post <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-openstack-foundation-2015.html" target="_blank">The OpenStack Foundation – 2015 Individual Director Election</a> – spoke about how I see this change as a problematic one. I personally do not think that the quorum would have been reached – if it was not for the “aggressive” marketing campaign that the Foundation embarked upon in order to reach this quorum. Without the countless number of posts from Board members, Foundation members (myself included) and anyone that cared about this election - on their blogs, social media and everywhere that was possible. <a href="https://twitter.com/jbryce" target="_blank">Jonathan Bryce</a> even promised to remove his beard to achieve this goal..</p> <blockquote lang="en" class="twitter-tweet"> <p>If we hit quorum in time, <a href="https://twitter.com/jbryce">@jbryce</a> will shave his beard! If you haven't voted, vote NOW! <a href="http://t.co/ys0g3Q60XS">pic.twitter.com/ys0g3Q60XS</a></p>— OpenStack (@OpenStack) <a href="https://twitter.com/OpenStack/status/555889236893634561">January 16, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>And he did! <blockquote lang="en" class="twitter-tweet"> <p><a href="https://twitter.com/jbryce">@jbryce</a>'s beard is gone! If you haven't voted, you have 5 MINUTES &amp; soon we'll post the 2015 election results <a href="http://t.co/ATFdOe5pQX">pic.twitter.com/ATFdOe5pQX</a></p>— OpenStack (@OpenStack) <a href="https://twitter.com/OpenStack/status/556132801750106112">January 16, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <p> A huge effort indeed, from the foundation and the community at large – but my question is..</p> <p><strong>How long will it be until it is needed again? </strong></p> <p>Yes the quorum needed is now officially only 10% (instead of 25%) but I do foresee the day that even that will not be reached (and that will not be too far in the future). That is why I think the change should have been to remove the quorum all together. </p> <h4>5. People were not happy with the change in the quorum</h4> <p>On both the first two amendments, the approval rate was 93-95% – almost everyone agreed. Changing the quorum – only had 80% of the people that approved. Of course that is still a majority and perfectly valid and acceptable as a decision, but still it is interesting to see that more people were not happy with the change.</p> <p>It would be interesting to know if it was the lowering of the percentage to 10% or was it that the proposed change should have been to remove the quorum altogether. I personally voted against this change because I think that the quorum should be removed completely and not lowered to 10%.</p> <p>I am very pleased that the changes were made – because it allows OpenStack to continue to grow, but I do think that planning should start <strong><u>now</u></strong> – for when the changes made in these amendments will not suffice and need to be changed again. </p> <p>If you are willing to share - I would be interested in hearing your thoughts about the points above. Please feel free to leave them in the comments below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-84468513668793679362015-01-15T00:34:00.001+02:002015-01-15T00:34:29.968+02:00The OpenStack Foundation – 2015 Individual Director Election<p>Well I am happy to say that the <a href="http://www.openstack.org/election/2015-individual-director-election/" target="_blank">election</a> is underway and I have already voted.</p> <p>Kenneth Hui had an interesting post about how <a href="http://cloudarchitectmusings.com/2015/01/13/openstack-is-a-social-contract/" target="_blank">OpenStack Is A Social Contract</a> and how people in the <a href="http://www.openstack.org" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> community should be rushing to vote.</p> <p>I had a few thoughts about the <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Governance/Foundation/2014ProposedBylawsAmendment#Align_quorum_for_Individual_Members_to_Amend_the_Bylaws_with_quorum_for_an_Individual_Member_election" target="_blank">change of quorum</a> that is proposed. </p> <ul> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Current bylaws: A majority of the Individual Members voting (but only if at least <strong>25%</strong> of the Individual Members vote at an annual or special meeting). This 25% threshold was selected rather arbitrarily at the time the bylaws were drafted and did not anticipate the number of Individual Members which have joined the Foundation. The 2014 election for Individual Directors had participation of less than 15% of the Individual Members. </font></em> <li><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Revised bylaws: A majority of the Individual Members voting (but only if at least <strong><u>10%</u></strong> of the Individual Members vote at an annual or special meeting).</font></em></li></ul> <p>Elections are never easy, but it is the only way to get the opinion of the public and your constituents. OpenStack as a community is no different. </p> <p>I have seen a growing number of posts or tweets about requesting people to cast their vote. There is a concern in the air (at least that is my personal feeling) that a quorum will not be met. This will have a number of implications on the changes in the bylaws, which could be a problematic for the future growth of the community. I am not going to go into the subject of, if I am in favor of the changes or not – we are all entitled to our own opinions. </p> <p>Accepting results if only a minimum of 10% of the members of the community participate. </p> <p><strong><em>(I would like to clarify – that results of a vote are valid – even if the number of participants are low).</em></strong></p> <p>According to <a href="http://www.openstack.org/blog/2015/01/why-all-openstack-foundation-individual-members-should-vote-now/" target="_blank">Stefano Maffulli’s post</a> – the people who can vote are those who are “<strong><em>active members of the OpenStack Foundation</em></strong>”.&nbsp; The number of people who vote for the TC elections – is <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-October/049494.html" target="_blank">going down</a>. The <a href="http://www.openstack.org/legal/individual-member-policy/" target="_blank">bylaws</a> define “active members” is <a href="http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-October/049502.html" target="_blank">defined</a> as a member who has participated in one of the last two board elections. </p> <p>The number of people who have joined the OpenStack foundation has grown so large that it will be very difficult to achieve a quorum going forward.</p> <p>If you are interested in participating OpenStack, take the time and make the effort to sign up, then you should also make an effort to exercise your right and vote.</p> <p>I am just worried about the decreasing numbers and what that says about the community. If the OpenStack community accepts or expects that only having 10% of people will participate in elections and vote on important issues then What does that say about the OpenStack community as a whole?</p> <p>Why is quorum needed? Who is to say that 10% is acceptable? Why not 15%? Why not 20%? Or for that matter – why not 2%? Who says that 10% is a quorum? </p> <p>Take a national election for example. What would happen that if for the parliament or president – you needed a quorum? That does not happen. It cannot happen. An election is a democratic process, where each eligible is asked to participate. If they choose not to – then that is their right – but you cannot nullify the whole election – when not enough people vote.<a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_EFFC/3915495980_442822d7ae_z.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="3915495980_442822d7ae_z" border="0" alt="3915495980_442822d7ae_z" align="right" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/The-OpenStack_EFFC/3915495980_442822d7ae_z_thumb.jpg" width="244" height="244"></a></p> <p>I think that a quorum is the number of people who vote. There should be no minimum. </p> <p>This does not change the fact that today this has to be changed – because the bylaws today state a number of 25%. </p> <p>It just seems strange to me. </p> <p>Lowering the threshold – the question is how low do you go? Instead of having to go through this again in the future – it better to remove that obstacle now than have to beg for people to vote in order to achieve a quorum.</p> <p>Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. </p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-32062542595705071442014-12-08T14:00:00.000+02:002014-12-08T15:10:18.953+02:00Keeping up to date with OpenStack Blueprints<p><a href="http://www.openstack.org" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> is a living product – and because it is community driven - changes are being proposed almost constantly.</p> <p>So how do you keep up with all of these proposed changes? And even more so why would you? </p> <p>The answer to the second question is because if you are interested in the projects then you should be following what is going on. In addition there could be cases where you see that the proposed blueprint could break something that you currently use or is in directly contradiction to what you are trying to do – and you should leave your feedback. </p> <p>OpenStack wants you to leave your feedback – <strong>so please do!</strong></p> <p>About the first question - the answer is here – <a href="http://specs.openstack.org">http://specs.openstack.org</a>. This is an aggregate of the new blueprints (specs) for each of the projects as they are approved. </p> <p>I use RSS feeds available for the blueprints which helps me keep up to date as soon as a new blueprint is added.</p> <p>I have compiled an OPML file with all the current projects that you can add to your favorite RSS reader. <br>You can download it in the link below.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/files/opml.opml" target="_blank"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="file" border="0" alt="file" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Keeping-up-to-date-with-OpenStack-Bluepr_E495/file.jpg" width="90" height="76"></a></p> <p>I hope this will be as useful to you as it is to me.</p> <p>As always, comments, suggestions and thoughts are always welcome.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-44501182126017745122014-12-02T15:00:00.000+02:002014-12-02T15:00:00.885+02:00Landing your first OpenStack Contribution<p>In my <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/11/start-contributing-to-openstack-easy.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> I showed you how to get your <a href="http://www.openstack.org" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> git environment up and running by using a container.</p> <p>In this post we will go through the steps needed to actually contribute code. This will not be a detailed tutorial on how to use git and gerrit, and its functionality, but rather a simple step by step tutorial on how to get your code submitted for review in OpenStack.</p> <p>First we start up the container. </p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-20-26.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="start container" border="0" alt="start container" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-20-26_thumb.png" width="644" height="230"></a></p> <p>Since playing around with real OpenStack code is not a good idea when you are just learning – there is a sandbox repository where you can perform all your tests.</p> <p><a title="https://github.com/openstack-dev/sandbox" href="https://github.com/openstack-dev/sandbox">https://github.com/openstack-dev/sandbox</a></p> <p>First things first we need to clone the repository so that we have a local copy of the files</p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>git clone </strong></font><font face="Courier New"><strong>https://github.com/openstack-dev/sandbox</strong></font></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-24-25.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="git clone" border="0" alt="git clone" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-24-25_thumb.png" width="644" height="124"></a></p> <p>What this does is, you copy all the files in the repository to a folder of the same name under your current working directory. Depending on the size of the repo – this could take seconds or minutes.</p> <p>Enter the directory and look at the files.</p> <p><font face="Courier New"><strong>cd sandbox<br>ls –la</strong></font></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-27-00.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="file structure" border="0" alt="file structure" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-27-00_thumb.png" width="595" height="259"></a></p> <p>You will see the files are the same as the those on the repository on the web.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-27-54.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="github" border="0" alt="github" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-27-54_thumb.png" width="644" height="464"></a></p> <p>With the exception of one file the <strong><font face="Courier New">.git</font></strong> folder which is not visible on the github repository. This <a href="http://gitready.com/advanced/2009/03/23/whats-inside-your-git-directory.html" target="_blank">link</a> will give you some more explanation as to what is in the folder.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-31-00.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title=".git folder" border="0" alt=".git folder" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-31-00_thumb.png" width="522" height="252"></a></p> <p>Now make sure you have the latest code from Github. <pre><strong>git checkout master
git pull origin master</strong></pre><pre><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-38-27.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="git checkout" border="0" alt="git checkout" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-38-27_thumb.png" width="516" height="159"></a></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Create a branch to do your work in that you'll do commits from.</font></pre><pre><strong>git checkout -b MYFIRST-CONTRIBUTION</strong></pre><pre><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-40-10.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="branch" border="0" alt="branch" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-40-10_thumb.png" width="508" height="60"></a></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Now we get to the changes.</font></pre><pre><font face="Arial">I am going to create folder named maish with two files inside, like the structure shown below</font></pre><pre><font face="Arial"><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-42-08.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="folder contents" border="0" alt="folder contents" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-42-08_thumb.png" width="463" height="141"></a></font></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Here I just created empty files – but it could be correcting someone else’s code or adding new code, the process is the same.</font></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Once you have completed your work you will need to add all the changes and push them back up to the original branch.</font></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Add all the files and changes by running</font></pre><pre><strong>git add .</strong></pre><pre><font face="Arial">Next, you commit your changes with a detailed message (and you should really <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/GitCommitMessages" target="_blank">understand how to commit</a> proper changes) that'll be displayed in review.openstack.org, creating a change set.</font></pre><pre><font face="Arial"><strong>git commit –a</strong></font></pre><pre><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-49-09.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="git add" border="0" alt="git add" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-49-09_thumb.png" width="446" height="92"></a></pre>
<p>A VI editor will open were you now can add the reasons for your change and mention any closed bugs. Follow the conventions about <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/GitCommitMessages">git commit messages</a> giving a good patch description, adding a summary line as first line, followed by an empty line, descriptive text, <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/HowTo#Git_commit_messages_and_backports">backport lines</a> and <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/GitCommitMessages#Including_external_references">bug information</a>:
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-51-27.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="commit message" border="0" alt="commit message" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-51-27_thumb.png" width="624" height="256"></a></p>
<p>Save the file by typing <strong><font face="Courier New">:wq, </font></strong>and you will see that your files and changes were added.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-53-35.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="commit result" border="0" alt="commit result" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-53-35_thumb.png" width="452" height="112"></a></p>
<p>Set up the Gerrit Change-Id hook, which is used for reviews, and run git review to run a script in the /tools directory which sets up the remote repository correctly: </p>
<p><strong><font face="Courier New">git review</font></strong></p>
<p>You might be asked prompted to accept the SSH key, type yes.</p>
<p>If all goes you will see something similar to the output below.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-55-32.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="git review" border="0" alt="git review" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-55-32_thumb.png" width="644" height="224"></a></p>
<p>Looking back at the github repo – you will not see any changes. You might ask yourself – where did my code go? </p>
<p>The reason you do not see any change – is that before any code is accepted in the master branch it has to be reviewed, both by an automated set of tests and also by humans.</p>
<p>So where did it go?</p>
<p>If you go to <a title="https://review.openstack.org/#/" href="https://review.openstack.org/#/">https://review.openstack.org/#/</a> you will see the change you just submitted</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-58-21.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="review.openstack.com" border="0" alt="review.openstack.com" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-58-21_thumb.png" width="644" height="174"></a></p>
<p>Clicking on the change will take you to the details where you can see the following:</p>
<p>The change information.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-59-44.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="change info" border="0" alt="change info" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_14-59-44_thumb.png" width="361" height="211"></a></p>
<p>The commit message (you will notice that the Change-Id was automatically added)</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-23.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="commit message" border="0" alt="commit message" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-23_thumb.png" width="444" height="193"></a></p>
<p>The status of the reviews and feedback. This could be an automatic test or an actual person who reviewed and left a comment.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-36.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="reviewers" border="0" alt="reviewers" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-36_thumb.png" width="644" height="215"></a></p>
<p>Here are the files that were checked in.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-48.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="files" border="0" alt="files" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-48_thumb.png" width="644" height="230"></a></p>
<p>And the comments themselves</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-57.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Comments" border="0" alt="Comments" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-00-57_thumb.png" width="644" height="348"></a></p>
<p>I can also make and additional change as well – this could be based upon feedback from one of the reviewers, a failed test, or any other reason. Here I added another file – file3. </p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-14-03.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="new patch set" border="0" alt="new patch set" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-14-03_thumb.png" width="394" height="199"></a></p>
<p>I need to add the changed files and commit them again – this time with a flag –amend. You can change the commit message.</p>
<p><strong><font face="Courier New">git add .<br>git commit –a –-amend</font></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-21-36.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="commit message2" border="0" alt="commit message2" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-21-36_thumb.png" width="554" height="239"></a></p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-19-51.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="commit result" border="0" alt="commit result" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-19-51_thumb.png" width="385" height="135"></a></p>
<p>And then push upstream.</p>
<p><strong><font face="Courier New">git review</font></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-25-14.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="git review" border="0" alt="git review" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-25-14_thumb.png" width="553" height="123"></a></p>
<p>Going back to the web page you will see a few differences.</p>
<p>The new commit message.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-26-16.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="new commit" border="0" alt="new commit" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-26-16_thumb.png" width="378" height="181"></a></p>
<p>And that the code is now added as a new patch set – i.e. a new version of the code.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-27-53.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="new patch set" border="0" alt="new patch set" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-27-53_thumb.png" width="644" height="215"></a></p>
<p><strong><u>One last thing.</u></strong></p>
<p>Since this is a sandbox – please keep it clean. That means when you are finished with your tests you should mark your commit as Abandoned.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-32-07.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="abandon" border="0" alt="abandon" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-32-07_thumb.png" width="644" height="257"></a></p>
<p>The status will change.</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-33-10.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="status change" border="0" alt="status change" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-33-10_thumb.png" width="339" height="183"></a></p>
<p>And this will change the status in you list of changes to Closed</p>
<p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-34-16.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Closed" border="0" alt="Closed" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Landing-your-first-OpenStack-Contributio_C904/2014-11-27_15-34-16_thumb.png" width="644" height="169"></a></p>
<p>I hope this was useful and will alleviate some of the concerns and people have with contributing code back into OpenStack.</p>
<p>Please feel free to leave your comments and feedback below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-37430852794424617882014-12-01T11:29:00.001+02:002014-12-01T14:06:08.572+02:00Introducing VIRL Personal Edition<p>This is an internal Cisco tool which is so useful – that I am really pleased that it is finally available for public consumption.</p> <p><a href="http://virl.cisco.com/" target="_blank">VIRL</a> Stands for Virtual Internet Routing Lab</p> <blockquote> <h6><font size="2" face="Meiryo UI"><em><u>What Is VIRL?</u></em></font></h6> <p><font face="Meiryo UI"><strong><em>VIRL is comprehensive network design and simulation platform. VIRL includes a powerful graphical user interface for network design and simulation control, a configuration engine that can build complete Cisco configuration at the push of a button, Cisco virtual machines running same network operating systems as used in Cisco’s physical routers and switches, all running on top of OpenStack. <a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Introducing_8266/virl.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 16px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="virl" border="0" alt="virl" align="right" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Introducing_8266/virl_thumb.png" width="244" height="211"></a></em></strong></font></p></blockquote> <blockquote> <h6><em><font size="2" face="Meiryo UI"><u>How Does VIRL Work?</u></font></em></h6> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">VIRL uses the Linux KVM hypervisor and OpenStack as its virtual machine control layer, with a powerful API enabling the creation and operation of VMs in a simulated network topology. Users design their network using the VM Maestro design and control interface, with network elements such as virtual routers, switches and servers. The design is translated into a set of virtual machines running real Cisco network operating systems.</font></em></strong> <h6><em><font size="2" face="Meiryo UI"><u>What Does VIRL Offer?</u></font></em></h6> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Design, learn and test with virtual machine running real Cisco network operating systems – IOS, IOS XE, IOS XR&nbsp; and NX-OS as well as virtual machine running 3rd party operating systems. Build highly-accurate models of real-world or future networks, study the behaviour and configuration of routing protocols, break and fix your network and understand how to troubleshoot with a powerful integrated platform.</font></em></strong></p></blockquote> <p>The original information can be found <a href="http://virl.cisco.com/about-virl-2/" target="_blank">here</a> <p>Cisco VIRL Personal Edition annual subscription license provides a scalable, extensible network design and simulation environment for several Cisco Network Operating Systems for students. This includes IOSv, IOS XRv, NX-OSv, CSR1000v as well as third party images such as Ubuntu Linux. <p>Educational pricing is available for this product for <b>college students</b>, <b>parents buying for a college student</b>, or <b>teachers</b>, <b>homeschool teachers</b> and <b>staff</b> of all grade levels – limited to one purchase. <p>VIRL enables users to: <p>• Build highly-accurate models of real-world or future networks. <p>• Learn and test with ‘real’ versions of Cisco network operating systems – IOSv, IOS XRv, NX-OSv and CSR1000v. <p>• Integrate virtual network simulations with real network environments. <p>• The download includes VIRL Personal Edition 1.0 Pre-Release software with a single-user annual license to manage up to 15 Cisco nodes. <p><font size="2">You can view a short demo of the product in the link below.</font> <p><a href="http://virl-dev-innovate.cisco.com/ML_videolb/vdbplayer.swf?volume=100&amp;url=video/ml01.mp4" target="_blank"><img title="VIRL Demo" alt="VIRL Demo" src="http://virl-dev-innovate.cisco.com/ML_videolb/thumbnails/ml01.png"></a></p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-30686883808594241122014-11-27T11:30:00.000+02:002014-11-27T13:27:38.421+02:00Start Contributing to OpenStack - The Easy Way #docker<p>One of the most daunting and complicated things people find when trying to provide feedback and suggestions to the <a href="http://www.openstack.org/" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> community, projects and code – is the nuts and bolts of actually getting this done.</p> <p>There are a number of tutorials around. The official kind - <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/HowTo/FirstTimers" target="_blank">HowTo for FirstTimers</a>, <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/HowTo#Detailed_Workflow_with_Github_and_Gerrit" target="_blank">Documentation HowTo</a>, <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Gerrit_Workflow" target="_blank">Gerrit Workflow</a>.</p> <p><a href="http://twitter.com/@scott_lowe" target="_blank">Scott Lowe</a> also posted a good tutorial on <a href="http://blog.scottlowe.org/2014/11/06/setting-up-the-tools-for-contributing-to-openstack-documentation/" target="_blank">Setting up the Tools for Contributing to OpenStack Documentation</a>. But the process itself is still clunky, complicated and for someone who has never used git or gerrit before – highly intimidating. </p> <p>That is why I embarked on providing a really simple way of starting to contribute to the OpenStack code. I was planning on writing a step-by-step on how exactly this should be done – but Scott’s post was more than enough – so need to repeat what has already been said.</p> <p>Despite that there are still some missing pieces in there which I would like to fill in here in this post. </p> <p>Before we get started there are a few requirements/bits of information that you <b>must have</b>, and some things that you need to do before hand - in order for this process to work. </p> <p>They are as follows:</p> <ol> <li>A <a href="https://launchpad.net/+login" target="_blank">launchpad</a> account <li>An <a href="http://openstack.org/join" target="_blank">Openstack Foundation</a> account. (<b>Use the same email address for both step 1 and step 2</b>). <li>A signed <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/CLA#Contributor_License_Agreement" target="_blank">Contributor License Agreement</a> (CLA). <li>A <a href="https://code.google.com/p/gerrit/" target="_blank">gerrit</a> http password. <li>Somewhere to run Docker (I wrote a post about this - <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-quickest-way-to-get-started-with.html" target="_blank">The Quickest Way to Get Started with Docker</a>) </li></ol> <p>Let me walk you through each of the steps.</p> <h3>1. A Launchpad Account</h3> <p>Sign up for a launchpad account – <a href="http://www.launchpad.net" target="_blank">http://www.launchpad.net</a></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-21-27.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Launchpad" border="0" alt="Launchpad" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-21-27_thumb.png" width="644" height="78"></a></p> <p>Register for a new account – you will need to provide some information of course</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-27-15.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Create account" border="0" alt="Create account" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-27-15_thumb.png" width="563" height="484"></a></p> <p>You will need to of course verify your email address. Go to your inbox and click on that link in the email you have received and validate your address</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-30-58.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Validate" border="0" alt="Validate" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-30-58_thumb.png" width="540" height="194"></a><br></p> <h3>2. Join the OpenStack Foundation</h3> <p>Sign up for an Openstack Foundation account – <a href="https://www.openstack.org/join" target="_blank">https://www.openstack.org/join</a></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-52-14.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Join OpenStack" border="0" alt="Join OpenStack" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-52-14_thumb.png" width="644" height="194"></a></p> <p>And fill in the details</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-53-50.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Details" border="0" alt="Details" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-53-50_thumb.png" width="644" height="456"></a></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-55-41.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Details2" border="0" alt="Details2" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_22-55-41_thumb.png" width="504" height="484"></a></p> <p><b><span style="color: red">*Remember* – use the same email address you used to sign up for the launchpad account.</span></b></p> <h3><span style="color: black">3. Sign the CLA</span></h3> <p>Go to <a title="https://review.openstack.org/" href="https://review.openstack.org/" target="_blank">https://review.openstack.org/</a> and sign in with your Launchpad ID (from Step 1)</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-04-42.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="cla" border="0" alt="cla" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-04-42_thumb.png" width="644" height="82"></a></p> <p>If you have not logged out of the Launchpad – you should be presented with a screen like the one below.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-06-26.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="confirm" border="0" alt="confirm" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-06-26_thumb.png" width="644" height="355"></a></p> <p>Some of the information will already be populated for you. You will need to choose a unique username.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-08-19.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="gerrit" border="0" alt="gerrit" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-08-19_thumb.png" width="644" height="451"></a></p> <p>We will not choose an SSH key at the moment. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and choose New Contributor Agreement.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-10-39.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="CLA2" border="0" alt="CLA2" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-10-39_thumb.png" width="644" height="153"></a></p> <p>You should choose the ICLA</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-11-37.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="ICLA" border="0" alt="ICLA" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-11-37_thumb.png" width="584" height="205"></a></p> <p>Review the agreement and understand what you are signing and then fill in the details below.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-13-08.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="details2" border="0" alt="details2" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-13-08_thumb.png" width="644" height="390"></a></p> <p>If everything is Kosher then you will be presented with the following screen to confirm </p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-14-59.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="Signed" border="0" alt="Signed" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-14-59_thumb.png" width="597" height="139"></a><br></p> <h3>4. A gerrit http password</h3> <p><br>Remember the username you chose from the previous step? this is the one you should use.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-08-19a.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="http password" border="0" alt="http password" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-08-19a_thumb.png" width="244" height="83"></a></p> <p>On that same Settings screen, choose HTTP password and enter your username and Generate Password<a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-17-13.png">.</a></p> <p><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="http password2" border="0" alt="http password2" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-17-13_thumb.png" width="388" height="179"></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-22-24.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="http password3" border="0" alt="http password3" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-26_23-22-24_thumb.png" width="276" height="114"></a></p> <p>Don’t worry – the password has already been changed – the minute I published this post.</p> <p>And we have finished all the registration and administrative things.</p> <p>Just to recap – you will need these details for later (you need to replace them with your relevant details instead)</p> <ol> <li>Your Name – Maish Saidel-Keesing <li>Email Address – maishsk@XXXX.com <li>Gerrit Username – maish_sk <li>HTTP Password - zwZW0X5NAGVP </li></ol> <h3>Running the Container</h3> <p><br>Now that we have all the parts – it is really simple to get started.</p> <p>The steps are as follows:</p> <p><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>docker pull maishsk/openstack-git-env</b></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: courier new"></span>This will retrieve the container from the <a href="https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/maishsk/openstack-git-env/" target="_blank">Docker Hub</a>. Once the container has been retrieved you can launch the container.</p> <p>A few points to note beforehand.</p> <ol> <li>The container will always start a bash shell. The aim of this environment is to allow you to contribute to the OpenStack Project – so it has to be interactive. <li>You have to provide 4 variable to the run command – <b><u>it has to be all four</u></b> – otherwise the container will not launch. <li>The container will automatically upload an SSH key to gerrit – to allow you to connect and contribute your code upstream. It does not remove the SSH keys when done – this you will have to do manually. </li></ol> <p>The command to launch the container would is as follows – and remember you need to take the values from above.</p> <p><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>docker run --name="git-container" \</b></span><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>-e GIT_USERNAME="\"Maish Saidel-Keesing\"" \<br>-e GIT_EMAIL="maishsk@XXXX.com" -e GERRIT_USERNAME=maish_sk \<br>-e GERRIT_HTTP_PASSWORD=zwZW0X5NAGVP -i \<br>-t maishsk/openstack-git-env</b></span></p> <p><span style="font-family: courier new"></span>A few words about the variables </p> <p><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>--name="git-container"</b></span> – this is just to identify the launched container easily<br><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>-e GIT_USERNAME="\"Maish Saidel-Keesing\""</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: arial">– the quotes have to be escaped \"<br><span style="font-family: courier new"><b>-e GIT_EMAIL=maishsk@XXXX.com</b></span> – </span>Don’t forget to put in your real email address!</p> <p>Once the container is launched – provided you have followed all the steps correctly and the variables are also correct - you will see some output printed to the screen with the SSH key that was just created and you will also be able to see that key in the gerrit web interface as well.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-27_00-39-49.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="run container" border="0" alt="run container" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-27_00-39-49_thumb.png" width="644" height="239"></a></p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-27_00-40-25.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="ssh key" border="0" alt="ssh key" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/Contributing-to-OpenStack---The-Easy-Way_13675/2014-11-27_00-40-25_thumb.png" width="644" height="296"></a></p> <p>You can see that the comment on the web is the same as the hostname of the container. </p> <p>Embedded below is a screencast of the launching of the container.</p> <p><script type="text/javascript" src="https://asciinema.org/a/14296.js" id="asciicast-14296" async data-speed="2" data-autoplay="false"></script></p> <p>In the next post – I will show you how to actually contribute some code. </p> <p>If you have any feedback, comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-8896439710887042682014-11-05T21:00:00.000+02:002014-11-05T21:00:02.099+02:00How Operators Can Get Involved in Kilo #OpenStackSummit<p>I participated on Monday in the <a href="http://kilodesignsummit.sched.org/event/08be73553f26b021fcf79addf2ffc342">Ops Summit: How to get involved in Kilo</a>, and as these sessions are not recorded I wanted to convey the messages that were conveyed at the session.</p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/How-Operators-Can-Get-Involved-in-Kilo-O_7DB9/openstack_summit.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="openstack_summit" border="0" alt="openstack_summit" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/How-Operators-Can-Get-Involved-in-Kilo-O_7DB9/openstack_summit_thumb.jpg" width="644" height="278"></a></p> <p>But first, the <a href="http://kilodesignsummit.sched.org/list/descriptions/type/ops+summit" target="_blank">Ops Summit</a> is a mini 2-day set of sessions that were introduced at the previous summit to get the feedback of the people actually using <a href="http://www.openstack.org" target="_blank">OpenStack</a> and their problems and issues that they are encountering. A great and formidable initiative on the part of the Foundation – still it is one that I think should be done before you start developing code, but that is only my humble opinion.</p> <p>There were a lot of the PTL’s and TC members there, showing that they are serious and listening to the community – not the developer community, but rather the Operators. </p> <p>I raised the following question in the session.</p> <blockquote> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">Being an operator – a guy that uses, deploys, manages, troubleshoots and supports OpenStack. I do not have developer experience, I do not have a team of developers at my disposal. </font></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><font face="Meiryo UI">How would you (“Openstack”) want us to contribute?</font></em></strong></p></blockquote> <p>The feedback was that they would like hear the problems we are having, submit the user stories, the issues, the pain points back to the developer community. This can be done by submitting bugs, by asking the questions on <a title="http://ask.openstack.org/" href="http://ask.openstack.org/">http://ask.openstack.org/</a> or on the IRC channels.</p> <p>Tell your stories, publish what you have achieved, and even post the problem that you encountered, and answer your own question if you solved it. The <a title="http://ask.openstack.org/" href="http://ask.openstack.org/">http://ask.openstack.org/</a> receives a lot of Google traffic so it makes things easier for others to find.</p> <p>Another item that was raised was that the TC would like to see more Operator feedback on the specs that are being added for each cycle. There is a <a href="http://specs.openstack.org" target="_blank">new portal</a> where all the proposed blueprints are being published – in a nice and collated fashion. </p> <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/How-Operators-Can-Get-Involved-in-Kilo-O_7DB9/image.png"><img style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="specs" border="0" alt="specs" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/How-Operators-Can-Get-Involved-in-Kilo-O_7DB9/image_thumb.png" width="644" height="270"></a></p> <p>They are organized per project and will point you to blueprint in question. They ask that you leave your feedback. I actually find this to be misleading. Where do I leave feedback? On that page? On the blueprint? On the Gerrit discussion?</p> <p>There was some feedback towards the PTL’s and the TC from the audience regarding the fact when people do submit blueprints and bug fixes (especially newbies) the probability of receiving negative reviews (-1’s) on the submission – for what ever reason - is very high. Something that perhaps could be addressed and make the process more “welcoming”.</p> <p>The one thing that I found was missing – and again it is a recurring theme here that I am coming across, throughout the summit. And I think that this is a major flaw in the way these things are being done at the moment. </p> <p>No-one said – give us feedback as to what you are interested in getting into OpenStack, <br><strong>before </strong>we actually start writing the code. </p> <p>Not after the code has been written. </p> <p>This does not mean that it will be implemented – but at least you are developing for a use case. An actual use case. </p> <p>Will someone use what is being written? Is the code actually going to be useable? If not what is missing to make it an adopted feature? </p> <p>More on this in following posts.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5819640694385843490.post-228557479450239692014-11-02T23:36:00.001+02:002014-11-02T23:37:54.825+02:00Putting Some Ops in the Dev - OpenStack Summit<p>I am currently writing this post from the plane on the way to the summit in Paris. For those of you who are living under a rock, or were completely unaware, this is the biannual "<a href="https://www.openstack.org/summit/openstack-paris-summit-2014/" target="_blank">pilgrimage</a>" of all thing OpenStack. This coincides with the Juno release that was went GA less than 3 weeks ago. <p><a href="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/d11d62a77936_13A44/openstack_summit.jpg"><img style="background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px" title="openstack_summit" border="0" alt="openstack_summit" src="http://maishsk.com/blog/images/d11d62a77936_13A44/openstack_summit_thumb.jpg" width="644" height="278"></a>This is only my <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/05/icehousejuno-openstack-summit-2014.html" target="_blank">second summit</a>, I have but I am really looking forward to bumping into some familiar faces, and making new acquaintances. <p>It is not the <a href="http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2014/09/an-open-letter-to-openstack-foundation.html" target="_blank">first time</a> I have said this, but I think that OpenStack is at a crucial impasse, at a time where some hard decisions have to be made, before it reaches a point of no return. <p>A new Technical Committee was elected recently, and already there are rumblings as to what should be the criteria for those who can voter, why is the the participation so low and is this a trend that we were going to have to get used to. To all those above, I do not have a clear answer, although I would like to add one thought. <p>The technical committee is elected by the ATC's (Active Technical Contributors). That is the way it should be, those who are actively putting in their time, their code into the projects, should be the one's who decide who they want as their representative. I think this was the first time where all candidates were presented with a <a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/TC_Elections_October_2014#TC_Election_Questions" target="_blank">set of questions</a> which tried to show their point of view of how things should be going forward. <p>Personally, I have met one or two of them, with others exchanged an email or two, an IRC chat or two, and others I know of them just from what I read on the mailing lists. <p>I think there is one very important thing that is missing, and hopefully, something that will change going forward. All of the candidates, they come from the technical contribution side. They know their stuff, they know the community, but I am not sure I can say that they have large deployment experience, they have not experienced 1st hand, in the flesh, the problems, the challenges, the frustrations that those who are deploying OpenStack in the field have. <p>The biggest problem here is that the number of Operator's (this is what is the acceptable term is in the OpenStack community) that actually contribute code into OpenStack is minimal or close to zero. <p>There are numerous reasons for that, and some might say that this is not the way it should be, but I am skeptical if and when this will change. Until that happens there will never be an 'operator' perspective, or an 'Operational way of thinking' as part of the technical committee. <p>And again, some might this is the way it should be. <p>I do not. I think that is in the best interest of the foundation and of the OpenStack community as a whole to have someone with that background, with that frame of mind as part of the committee that is leading us all. <p>Unfortunately, this is what I see as a classical disconnect between development and operations, the antithesis of DevOps, where they should work as one, and not have the Operations people and the 'Enterprise' join in as an afterthought. That unfortunately is the case as it is today. <p>I hope that I can get this point through to as many people as possible at the summit. <p>Please feel free to come and sit down and chat with me, I would always be interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas. I am pretty easy to recognize, I gather there will not be many people at the summit with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kippah" target="_blank">kippah</a>. <p>Of course you can always leave your thoughts and comments below as well.</p> Maish Saidel-Keesinghttps://plus.google.com/115978160847249360957noreply@blogger.com